Know Ya Flow
Women in flow, share what they know. Hear women's stories of how they've grown, what they know, and how they are living in flow.
Know Ya Flow
How Cycle Awareness Helps Build Inner Trust - Feminine Wisdom with Rachel Swan
You can find Rachel at @song.of.ma
http://www.songofma.com
Our latest guest, Rachel shares how nature has influenced her journey into the feminine. We talk about how her challenges of PMDD brought her into the world of cycle tracking. We talk about how Ayurveda has influenced and helped her journey and her transformative role as a doula and feminine embodiment coach.
As she guides us through embracing the body's cycles and the divine feminine, Rachel's insights challenge us to harness these potent energies for personal growth and empowerment.
Rachel enlightens us on the interplay between shame, self-worth, and societal pressures women face, advocating for a balanced embrace of feminine energy and creativity. Her stories of feminine embodiment coaching and the sacred experience of birth attendance breathe life into the unique and transformative journeys she facilitates. So, if you're looking to awaken to your own rhythm and reclaim your power, join us for an episode that is as vulnerable as it is wise.
Welcome to Know your Flow podcast, where women in flow share what they know. I'm your host, lauren Barton. Join me as we talk to women and hear their stories on what they know, how they've grown and living in flow. All right, welcome.
Speaker 1:Today we're here with Rachel. Hi, rachel, hi. I'm super jazzed to sit and chat today. Honestly, what a lovely Tuesday morning that we're going to have. Yeah, so Rachel and I this is our first time sitting down and chatting we have a lot of stuff in common. We both go to shine and we both are into women's work and also both have Heelys, which was so funny. Rachel came to one of my classes and was like, oh my God, is that a Healy? And then, you know, we got into it. So I feel honored to have you and I know that you have so much wisdom to share that women in our community and in a broader reach will be grateful to hear. So thanks for being here. So tell us a little bit about you, so kind of maybe even like how you grew up, what your upbringing was like and how you got into this sort of work, and just sort of maybe like key points about about you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel called to. Really the main part of my childhood that I really feel has shaped me so deeply was just like this connection to nature that my, my dad, brought out in all of us. So I really grew up in a you know just normal suburban area in Virginia, northern Virginia, but like that was our church. We went out, you know hiking and camping and canoeing and, yeah, I feel called to bring in like my ancestors are very Welsh, on all sides Welsh and Celtic, and from that lineage is like the Druids you know those were the shamans, the medicine people of that lineage, and they that word Druid means oak and I've always felt like the trees are just like my main source, my therapist, my support system. So that has really like led me on my path.
Speaker 2:I studied biology in college and then I think what kind of shifted me into a more healing journey was my cycle. I just like had really intense like premenstrual luteal phase was diagnosed with premenstrual luteal phase was diagnosed with PMDD, which is premenstrual dysphoric disorder. Yeah, and I really that led me down this path of just coming back to myself, so intense that my partner at the time I would, every single time I was in my luteal phase, I would like break up with him and have this like crazy, dramatic, like spiral, and I think I it was at that time I was reading the woman who run with wolves um, clarissa Pincola Estes and this idea of wild woman like came into my consciousness and she was coming into my dreams and she would, in my dream, like murder my partner at the time. And, yeah, there was like this whole awakening of like I break, I broke up with him, I moved to Richmond and I started doing, um, ayurveda training, um, and so that was just kind of this like okay, I think that actually my luteal phase is a phase that can really tell you so much about, like what you actually want or need, and whereas we have like pathologized it so deeply in our culture to, you know, feel like you're crazy or insane or whatever.
Speaker 2:And that was like a really big coming home to myself and to trusting my body for once, because for so long it was just like, yeah, a lot of people were always telling me to go to therapy and go to whatever like it, and that's fine, but I just felt like that's not what I need and so, yeah, like I think a lot of key points of my, like my journey of where I'm at now, um and from from there, studying Ayurveda really deepened me into yoga and yeah, then I got on the path of working with women in birth and doula and as a midwife and then kind of from there stepping back more just into this role as a facilitator and a teacher and what feminine embodiment coach.
Speaker 2:But throughout that whole journey journey I've been very held by, yeah, this, this bigger connection to the plants and to the trees and to this reflection of our bodies as nature and as, like this you know, this collective organism.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, I feel right now very firmly rooted in just like the wisdom of my body and and I feel, yeah, this, this bigger split I really like to orient myself to like why things the way are, the way that they are in my body and in the collective. And I think recently I've really felt what has been missing is this like divine, feminine aspect throughout religion, throughout every aspect of our culture. And that's that split happened, what, like thousands and thousands of years ago, right, and that split also feels like, you know, the division of body and like divinity and like matter and spirit and really out, giving our power away and outsourcing our power to some other person, or yeah, and so I think my work right now has really been, and for the past couple years of my own healing journey, just like cultivating that inner trust within myself, yeah, and reclaiming this, like this yin aspect, this divine feminine, this way of relating to ourselves that's listening to the body first, over the mind or over what other people have to say.
Speaker 1:Sorry I went all comes back together of it started with your cycle. It sounds like that really started to be what was bringing things to light. And so what did it look like for you to change your mindset between something's wrong with me to this might be my body really showing me how I actually feel? Because I believe everything that you said about um, and I wish and hope that our society can and our women can know more that your luteal phase you're not crazy. It's showing you, you know your, your bullshit meter of estrogen is gone, so what you want to deal with and what you want to see for yourself and your truth is more clear in that time. Sometimes, and not necessarily, you're crazy, you know, and moody and all of this. You know other stuff. So what did it look like?
Speaker 2:kind of moving from this is a problem to maybe this is truth yeah, I think it was a really slow process and it went to a lot of teachers that have. You know, like, reading the book woman's bodies when was woman's wisdom was one of the first entryways to that understanding. And, yeah, I can, I can just think of myself at that time. There was so much. There's this act of, there's this like part of victimhood mentality that I was really, you know, deeply steeped into, that I was really, you know, deeply steeped into that I was really wanting my partner, my parents, or I'm the youngest of four also, which feels like really related in a way that I was always wanting to give my power away and and some, for some reason, like I don't know, like when, I would go into those manic states where I would feel like close to like, you know, suicidal, like it was really so intense, like it feels so far away from myself, but also I would get, like it would give me a lot of like. I felt like I was reaching out for help in these really unhealthy ways, um, instead of like, yeah, really really reaching within. But I think it was, yeah, just starting to do, starting to follow my cycle was like my pathway into I guess, just not pathologizing that part of myself, yeah, and starting to work with holistic pelvic care as well, when I started to do like the internal, like actually breathing into my body and like being with it, which I can feel like is a faraway concept for a lot of people who are so like so many of us can be so disassociated to everything that's going on, because the body remembers everything you know and it's really woven into our fascia, I truly believe, from you know, ancestrally, karmically, but also just from everything that we went through as children and there's big T trauma and little T trauma and all of it is held and experienced in a certain way in the body. And once I started really actually interacting with my fascia and my body like self-massage has been pivotal for my like journey just yeah, just oiling my body, yeah, and a lot of the the different people I've worked with along the way have all been supportive in this process of coming back to just like this, this inner trust, and I think reading the work of Louise Hay too was really supportive to me, Like I've never been one to.
Speaker 2:I understand Western medicine has its place, but I've never been one to go to the doctor that much, starting since, like I was 19. I was like, every time I go, there's nothing helping me here. You know, like you, you know I tried birth control and all the different things and they always just made me feel even further from who I really am. And so I feel like once I learned like, okay, your emotions and like what you know, these conflicts or these things that are happening in my life are affecting and creating these different symptoms that are arising, and so then you know that playing out of my body, I put that wisdom, too, to whatever symptoms were arising in my cycle. And once I really turned, you know, towards her and let myself rest during my bleed and really like gave myself that permission deeply and like started to interact with my blood and feed it to the earth and to my plants and like all these different things and journal and like connect with the moon, it felt like it all kind of happened at the same time.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting too because, at least in my experience, all of those sort of things become layered on top of each other and then they just become a part of your practices and a part of your everyday existence. But sometimes it's hard to really say, okay, it was that moment that this all like changed or I started trusting my body. On this day. It's very in my experience I don't know if you feel this way it's a gradual like practice of like, little by little it becomes second nature to start trusting yourself, trusting your decisions, being able to tap in a little bit easier. Um, and it's cycle by cycle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love that too. It's like you have 12 opportunities a year you know, and it's just like, with it's this, I love that too Like that is this, this harmony of today's which I love that it's this balance of the dark and the light, the masculine and the feminine, and I feel like we have that opportunity to tune into that every single day, when the sun rises, when the sun sets, but then also every single month and our bodies as women, with the cycle and then with the seasons of the earth, and it's so rich.
Speaker 2:If you can, like, you know, reap the benefits and like the, the gifts and the wounds of each um, each season and cycle.
Speaker 1:You know it does, like, it does build on itself and it's a lifelong journey to like self-love and trusting yourself, and it's and moving through every outer season and every inner season and every moon cycle and all of it. It's just, it is all lifelong, literally for your whole life. It's going to be a part of it and moving with it, I think, makes your experience a lot easier.
Speaker 2:And like thinking of just made me think of, like the movement into motherhood too, and like the maiden, the mother and the crone, and how we cycle through those processes. Each, like the spring spring is very like maiden energy and creative and like curious and playful, and that, yeah, there's like the dark aspects of of each and I just I love the like this, this juxtaposition of all the different archetypes. I think working with archetypes has been, yeah, definitely super powerful for me and like I think, as humans, we need stories to orient ourself. Like everything is a story. You know, every, every day, you're talking to your partner or your friend, like you, you, we express ourselves through, through story, and so I think working with these different energies of archetypes is super powerful too.
Speaker 1:What do you feel like is the darker side of spring or the darker side of, I mean of maiden and then the darker side of mother. And then I feel like we love to talk about the darkest sides of crone.
Speaker 2:You know where that almost needs to be flipped, where we need to talk about the brighter sides, the for maiden it can feel like this um, you know, that's like the solar plexus, that's where maiden is related to, so it can be a lot about worth, but also like this excitement and lack of discernment, so kind of like throwing yourself into something and being naive and not really yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then for our listeners, what age is maiden Like? When would be the age for the maiden? And then the transition into mother?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's. I mean, you would be a maiden from the time you get your bleed until, potentially, birth, but then also, at the same time, you don't have to give birth to be a maiden or a mother and you can. Also, I think we cycle through these different archetypes too, depending on where we're at in our lives. You know, like these, there's an 80 year old woman could be going through her a maiden phase again if she's like, yeah, yeah. So I don't think they're. They're can be biological, but also, yeah, very much based on where you're at, and you can work with the energies relating to the season as well. But anyway, yeah, yeah. And then I guess I think the the dark side of the mother would be the over giving to the point of just like martyring yourself and not centering yourself as a mother, which is so common and so important to do. To center yourself as a mother because you are the root of your family and very much sometimes of like the communities that you're in, just energetically. And yeah, I think there can be so much resentment that builds in the mother from from that lack of self orienting. Yeah, that's what comes up right now. I mean, I see so many mothers doing that and not putting their healing first and feeling, and I think that there's this cultural narrative too, that it's selfish to put yourself first as a woman or as a mother.
Speaker 2:And in the end, this is making me think of anana um, I've been working with anana. She's the sumerian goddess of love and war, of, of paradox, of um, like thunderstorms and rain, and she really in her mythology it's a lot about the ascent and descent journeys, like the birth, death, rebirth, portals, and she really chooses again and again to go through these different initiations, choosing herself because she wants to be self-actualized. But when she does that, she always comes back with these gifts and with like so much to give to her community and to the collective. And I think that's why I mean, that's why I do the work that I do. I hold this wider, like. I know that what's within is without and like as above is below. So I do really believe that when we do the work within, like it it reflects outward into our family, to the people that we love and to our community. That is so powerful.
Speaker 1:That's how it's been in my experience is getting support, and I think that's a huge thing that women don't want to reach out for, to spend money on, to whatever it is. I think we're resistant to support as though it makes us seem weak or as though we can't hold it all and we're trying to, or whatever. But for me and my journey, I know support has been so helpful to move forward and it sounds like you know, when you're looking back at how you sort of stepped into this place, that support whether it be from books or from teachers or from friends or whoever was huge in your journey as well. And I think that you know talking about the feminine and how it's not supported in our you know community not in our community, but our society. It's like do it by yourself, don't reach for others, blah, blah, blah, and that's kind of not what it should be.
Speaker 2:Well, that's like the internalized. Maybe you could, I don't know, I don't always want to just call it patriarchal, like customs, but there's so much bigger than that.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah. Patriarchal like customs, but there's, there's so much bigger than that.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly yeah like there's, there's so many different layers. Like I said, I think the root is like that, that split between our bodies as as our sit, you know as holy, because it's like, yeah, but I I do think like the lack of support is is very internalized. And even working with postpartum women, I notice, like, working with postpartum women, I noticed, like, as a postpartum doula, like even the amount of support that I could give, I felt so like like it's, it could never be enough, because you need a village to take care of a woman, to take care of a family, and I think we're so set up to in these kinds of nuclear families that it's yeah, it's, it's really yeah, it's difficult to come back into that like community relating in a way that feels like natural and fluid. And yeah, I do think, like I just saw that you were starting a woman's circle and that was a huge dream for mine, for so of, and I started the one in Berryville the well three years ago now, and that changed everything too. Just like weekly meeting with this group of women and like being together and just witnessing each other, because, like there's so like women have been gathering in circles for millennia.
Speaker 2:You know, that's what we do, yeah, and to bring it into like the modern world and just have it, you know, be a space for open-hearted authenticity, like I know that's been healing for me and so many of the women that came to our circle. We actually just, I think it's cool that you just started one because we're closing ours. We just we have our last kind of one this Monday at the full moon and it feels right. It felt kind of just like, okay, this, this chapter, has kind of come to a close and I'm, you know, the two women that I started it with are both going in their kind of direction and I, yeah, I've been wanting to hold even more like specific transformational healing spaces, and sometimes just like a two-hour circle, like it didn't, yeah, so it wasn't meeting like my exact needs anymore. But at the time, because we, yeah, you just grow so much, you evolve so much in three years, I'm like, yeah, so, but definitely like women's circles have changed my life.
Speaker 1:What would you say to women who have been, let's say, maybe wounded by other females or female friendships, and that doesn't really feel comfortable, that feels maybe too raw or unsafe or yeah, I think that that sister wound is so deep and also was.
Speaker 2:I think that it's important to kind of understand like a broader context of it, because it's not just you, it's not just like this lifetime. Like that sister wound is deeply from like the times of, you know, like persecution of women and witches and medicine women and midwives, and you know like it was to protect yourself in the end. But I do think that programming has been like has has carried on for a couple millennia. And now we are where we are on for a couple millennia. And now we are where we are and so many women experience that feeling of unsafe, you know, discomfort and safety around other women and even the women in the circles they've expressed that like coming into this space is it is vulnerable, because you also also women's circles are like a ceremony and you can kind of know like there's, there can be this like fear, I guess, around, like you kind of know that there's going to be change here, um, and that can feel really big for the system. So I would, I would just say like give yourself so much grace and like go, go where you can like meet your edges and like if you need to leave or like, if it's not, you're not ready for it. I think just trust the process, um, and know that you're like so brave for showing up, because you're showing up for yourself and you're showing up for all the women like who haven't been able to do this like healing work, and all of our daughters and all the women to come like it it heals forward and backward to work with this like healing work and all of our daughters and all the women to come like it heals forward and backward to work with this like sister wound. And you know like women are so powerful. When women gather, like worlds shift, you know, so like I think like again, it has been helpful for me to know that these wounds aren't just my own, that they are this like bigger cultural context, um, you know like, and who knows who knows like why things are the way they are.
Speaker 2:But I do believe that, yeah, I think I've I've seen how things are through the lens of, um some Hindu mythology that's really like helped orient me of the last 26,000 years being this age of the Kali Yuga, and also like the Toltecs and in different, like indigenous, you know like trains of thought have seen like you know, humanity and the earth move in these different cycles, and this past cycle has been one of the darkest ages of humanity, you know, with so much war and death and division and destruction. But there is this, you know, this understanding and this view of this movement into the age of Aquarius and this age of like potential, like potentially the most beautiful age of all, because we have all this, like you know, evolution and understanding, and like technology, and there's also this shift in consciousness, like you can feel it. It's very obvious that so many people are orienting back to, like connecting to the earth, connecting to themselves, and I just feel like I don't know how that just feels connected to like these, these overarching things that we're all healing together. So, knowing that it's not, it's not just you, like so many of us are experiencing it and it's continuing to resurface, but a lot of these things are coming up like to be released. So I really love that view.
Speaker 2:When I'm feeling that sister wound, that jealousy, that comparison, because that is huge for me.
Speaker 2:When I'm feeling that sister wound, that jealousy, that comparison, because that is huge for me, I can like be very authentic when I express, like, how much I've gone through that myself, um, and finding sisters like that you are safe around, to even express that like that has been so healing for me to say to my friend like you know, I'm feeling kind of jealous of you, like I, and it's like inspiring me, it's showing me where I want to be or go, but like like that has really, yeah, healed a lot within me.
Speaker 2:And all those women have been a part of the women's circles and you know also, I think, trust that sometimes the people you're around aren't the you know like, aren't the ones that can hold you, because I have had that experience too, where I've been in groups of women that aren't the you know like, aren't the ones that can hold you, because I have had that experience too, where I've been in groups of women that aren't able to meet me where I need to be met emotionally.
Speaker 2:So, like I think again, just come back to your body and like, trust yourself and I think there's this like discernment within of like, okay, what is like true truth in my body that's supporting me, of knowing like this is actually potentially dangerous, whatever to my you know what I mean as a, as a, as an animal in this, this human body, and or is it like you know this is my wounding and do I want to like dip a toe in and do some work here. Or you know, there's yeah, like Lauren said, like the cycles, there's so many cycles you can follow, with the moon, with the seasons, and to really like trust the energetic and like the yes, because sometimes it is a no, and you can also just trust that too, that you're not ready and there's nothing wrong with you for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah, that was a great answer yeah that too, that you're not ready, and there's nothing wrong with you for that yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was a great answer. Yeah, that was great. Yeah, no, do you feel like growing up? Or even because did all of this work start?
Speaker 2:you would say like 20 I'm 29 now, so probably like after college.
Speaker 1:So like 20, 23, yeah, 22, 23, yeah, for sure do you feel like you grew up in a space where your family or where society or you know said trust yourself, or I mean you had kind of spoke about how you kind of were the youngest so so you kind of gave away a lot of that or whatever.
Speaker 2:but yeah, I mean, I am so close with my family I live in Winchester to be near them, but that doesn't mean that like it's not difficult sometimes. Yeah, I think that it's interesting. I mean, I went to public school and I, you know, both my parents were extremely supportive. I think to the point that sometimes I feel like I didn't, you know, get to like jump out on my own. Think that once I, once I went into high school, like I can remember, you know, you, you can feel that like spark of, like that vibrant, magical little being of you know, when you were, like when I was like six and seven, I remember just like being outside and like standing on a hill and feeling the wind on my face and just feeling like I'm a witch and there was like there's a reason I like.
Speaker 2:I remember that. And then in high school like, yeah, I know I witch, and there was like there's a reason. I like I remember that. And then in high school like, yeah, I know I can, I can. Just like there's this period in my life where I felt deeply, deeply lost and like very much turned to drugs and alcohol and like, yeah, like this destruction of my body.
Speaker 1:That was not, yeah, like supporting me at all, because do you feel like you low-key, knew what you wanted and who you were, but it was all back into the trusting thing and believing in it and like actually moving forward with it for sure?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah and I think, yeah, even in in college, like, yeah, like there was there was a lot of just drowning myself in alcohol because I didn't know how to deal with like the big emotions and the confusion. There wasn't like mentors or supports really to direct me until I found yoga, honestly, and did my yoga teacher training and the thing that really there's this one phrase that I remember my yoga teacher at the time said to me and she was just like it was a Sanskrit um phase, it's so hum and it just means I am that and like I am.
Speaker 2:I am that which is more than my thoughts and more than like my emotions and more than this human body, and that just hit me like so hard because I have I've always, I think I I am so human, like I have a lot of. I'm very I can be very moody and impatient and like resentful all the things and project onto you know, the ones that I love, my partner and my mom, and, um, yeah, I think that that, yeah, like just that recognition, that like that, that humanness is one part of me that's so beautiful. But there's also this like divinity within me. This like that is pure love and infinite entryway into like learning to trust myself. But no, I don't, I don't think I I remember too, just like never having like teachers that you know, really supported me.
Speaker 2:They. It was always like I didn't do that great in school so and I would skip class and you know so I was just seen as this person that wasn't very smart or didn't care, and I really internalized that as well. But I think the thread throughout again was like, yeah, going into nature and talking to the trees and to the plants, so I like even though I feel like I've lost myself so many times as we go through these different phases of our life like that has been my one steady support system that is reflecting back to me my wholeness and my beauty, you know back to me my wholeness and my beauty.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, no, definitely, yeah, for sure, and I love how you said that. You know it was your yoga teacher training and finding yoga that really did that. Did you feel like that really is what sort of introduced you into the physical of like, oh, this is my body, this is how it moves, like this is what feels good, this doesn't that sort of thing yeah, for sure, I've always.
Speaker 2:So my dad actually took us to yoga when I was 16, so I've been doing it for a really long time on and off, but then once I was like getting out of college, yeah, I remember I would just lay in shavasana and just like be sobbing like sobbing crying and like why is my body doing this?
Speaker 2:and yeah, in that experience too and the you know the immersive experience of a teacher training where we did, we did a lot of chanting and like activation of the voice and dancing, which I love to dance um, yeah, that was definitely such an entryway of like holy crap, there's so much here that wants to be seen and just witnessed.
Speaker 1:What do your practices look like now in terms of the physical, or getting in touch with your body, and listening.
Speaker 2:I've gone through so many different iterations of this, many different like iterations of this, you know, and I think my practice right now is is just showing up every single day at my altar. Um, so, I have an altar in my house that is like deeply, deeply important to me and it's just a space where I have, you know, all the elements. I have a candle and, uh, some crystals and just things that are beautiful to me and meaningful to me and some water, and, yeah, I show up there every single day and usually write a little bit or, you know, sit, it's actually meditation has always been something that is, yeah, it's just a funny difficult thing for me, but I think it's in the trying. You know, there's not really judgment at this point because I know at that state, yeah, that's, I think the trying is the most important part and, yeah, I think that that's a big like anchor for me, sitting there and writing and then getting outside at least once a day and going on a walk, and that's actually the main place that I really work through a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:You know, when I am feeling like the big emotions that I can't put a word on, I go outside and I just like cuss words or blah, you know, and I do that out loud like, not super loud, like a crazy person, but just on my walks and I talk and that has really that's one of my main practices of like, because usually when I get 10 or 15 minutes in, I'm releasing somatically.
Speaker 2:I usually cry and then I'm laughing and I'm like okay, I got that out, like my body just wanted to process that. And I do feel, as we turn, turn towards ourselves and turn towards, like working with the shadow, these unconscious, unconscious you know parts of ourselves, like they can, they can get louder sometimes, you know, and you can cause like they're like all right, they're really bubbling up, like I said, coming up to the surface to be released, and I've really actually experienced that in this work, especially starting a business, and really like saying yes to my purpose and my dreams of like okay, like yeah, you want to say yes, okay, here you go, yeah, so I really want to normalize that yeah, I love that you said that because it is true, it's so.
Speaker 2:I really want to normalize that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that you said that, because it is true. It's like, oh, you want to start working through some stuff you do. Okay, well, here it all is, are you sure? And then it's like, no, maybe I'm not, I don't want to.
Speaker 2:But if you don't, then you don't release it, you end right, because it's going to be there.
Speaker 2:Whether you want to like check it out or not, you know yeah, no, and and there's so much, so many of these layers, especially with I have a lot of entrepreneur friends and you, you know, with Instagram in the modern world, you see how everyone else is doing things and they look like they're just killing it, and there can be this added layer again of like internalizing not being productive enough or successful enough or like moving quickly enough, and I've really had to work through that with myself like this wounding around self-worth and not being enough is like the biggest thing for so, so, so, so many people.
Speaker 2:And again, I think that's like, yeah, a very like cultural, cultural, wide program that isn't necessarily ours to carry, but I do think that like yeah, if it's, if it's coming up, like it does want to be seen and recognized and seen with like love and acceptance, like that added layer of judgment when has that ever supported you and actually changing and what if? Like even yeah, when you're acting in these ways, that's like yeah, like resentful and hurtful and whatever to you know, like still coming back to compassion first for yourself, because you're also a human, yeah, and I don't think anything will shift unless we find that for ourselves first.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because if not, it's just being forced or shamed, or you know Exactly. All that yeah.
Speaker 2:And like shame. Shame is so big for so many of us and that is like, if we think about frequency, like that is the lowest frequency that that you can be in, and it's so prevalent. At the same time, and I I'm not, I don't know like I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I do feel like there's these. There's these like temptations or these things that are meant to be in our way and energies that aren't always supportive to our biggest growth, and I do feel like like there has been the programming around like our body is as sin and this shame to to disconnect us as women, especially from our womb space and from our power, you know, because the shame usually is living there and is so connected to our sexuality. Yeah, that made me feel really like fiery.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but no, you're right.
Speaker 2:But you are right.
Speaker 1:Like how many people grew up in a religion where they were told you know, you can't trust your feelings, don't trust your body, your body is bad, this, that and the other. And even if they didn't grow up in it, but even hearing it, it starts to turn that on when it never needed to be.
Speaker 2:Oh for sure. And I can think about like being in high school and, like you know, just getting comments on I don't shave my legs or if, like I'm, I remember getting shamed for like my, my period blood, that I bled on someone at like a, you know, a party and like so much, you know, when I did get my bleed too, like there was no work, no talk about it, it was just kind of like all right, here's some tampons, you know, like here's some pads, and there's no like celebration or like honorants of it. And yeah, I feel like even that there's so much internalization there that, like our bodies are dirty and wrong and like yeah, like there's yeah and that like pulling us away too from our sexual life force, energy, which is our creative energy.
Speaker 2:It's what we create our life with, you know, and if you don't have that connection to that, then you're basically gonna be powerless and be easy to control.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's huge, it really is, and that can keep us stuck. Yeah, it's big.
Speaker 2:It's like it's big stuff to move through. It's super brave to orient towards it and face it, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, yeah, yeah, and you know we talked a little bit about um, the trust in our bodies and the things that can get stored there and and things like that. What are the some of the things that you've seen in your work um with with women or just people in general that you see come up a?
Speaker 2:lot. Or I see the shame piece come up a lot for women and like guilt around not doing. I think I mean most all women that I've worked with I feel like have either painful periods or fibroids or like cervical dysplasia and endometriosis and there's so much going on in women's pelvic bowls, you know, and I think that points to the disassociation and the the not honoring of these spaces, because it's prevalent, Like it's very common, but it's not normal to have this much pain each cycle and so, yeah, I think there's a lot of internalization of again that like split away from ourselves as good, like that. Yeah, I see that just come up a lot. And and the women I work with just like feeling like they're yeah, they're not like, they're not enough, they're not good enough, they're not like pure at heart.
Speaker 1:What type of so for our listeners? What type of work do you do with women, primarily so?
Speaker 2:I do holistic pelvic care, which is a technique developed by Tammy Lynn Kent. She has an amazing book called Wild Feminine. I fully, wholeheartedly recommend it. So yeah, the whole idea methodology there is working with pelvic women's pelvic bowls, either physically on, like a gentle internal vaginal massage, or energetically, just kind of led somatically, with visualization and really bringing the awareness and the attention back to the pelvic bowl, because the main pattern that we see is stagnation and decon, like just congestion, because like think of our bodies like they're these channels and everything is like a lot of the time falling down and landing in our pelvic bowl. And that's why people say you know, you hold a lot of grief here, you hold a lot of tension and a lot of like your emotions, like it's also the womb waters, it's the second chakra, you know the that is like that emotional center point.
Speaker 2:So yeah, like my, my main work with women is just like bringing them back into their pelvic poles, into their womb and into their body and just in that, just in doing it energetically, like there is huge shifts that can happen immediately. There's usually a lot of yeah, like somatic release, but it's also super gentle and yeah. So that's the main work I'm doing with women now and just like feminine embodiment coaching, which is the same, just how can we return back to listening to what our body's saying, like with each symptom you know if you're having vaginal discharge, or like you know different symptoms or things coming up in this, especially the womb can, instead of like running to yeah to someone else, to the doctor, immediately, can you like be with it because sometimes, like, just like the witnessing and like the being with it can shift things really quickly that I've seen. Obviously there is a time and place for everything, but yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:And I also I work with women as a birthone healing retreats that are, yeah, very oriented to pelvic work, but also just abdominal massage and like full body Again, like really letting the body express. You know, these deeper held things that are blocking you from your source connection, that are blocking you from your source connection. So, yeah, I'm really devoted to returning the power to the women I work with, because I'm not here to heal anyone. In the end, you have to do it yourself, and that is both empowering but also can be really intimidating at the same time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree. Really powerful work, though, and huge and much needed for sure. Just to have somebody guide you through that, because you can get stuck in your mind. You'd be like, oh, I want to connect, I want to connect, I want to get back in my body. But you're like, maybe what does that actually?
Speaker 2:look like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. No, it's extremely powerful. It's changed my life so much, but even with that, there's still, yeah, like I said, so many layers, like I'm still deeply on this, this journey too. So it's so humbling and I but I feel so honored to to do this work because it is very vulnerable but, yeah, like the women I work with are, so I learn so much from them and feel very inspired.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah absolutely so have you been. So you've been working a little bit more with the feminine and things like that, and so what has that looked like for you as of lately, and what do you think like? How do we connect more into that energy, even though it's sort of harder to access in our day-to-day life? With how you know, everything's kind of designed for a more masculine environment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I really feel the feminine, like the feminine is this the darker aspect of the yin and the yang symbol, and I feel like she really calls on us for slowness and for listening.
Speaker 2:For slowness and for listening and, I think, first and foremost, connecting to your cycle and, if you're not bleeding, connecting to the moon as a guide, you know, a guiding post, because when the moon is dark, like you can really, or you're bleeding, you can really take that time to go with it and whatever that means to you, you, if that means taking an epsom salt bath or that means like journaling or reading a book, or just like, instead of going out, like, yeah, being home and watching a movie with your partner, um, and I think like naturally just starting out by connecting to your cycle in that way, and then, yeah, like, if you feel, when you are ovulating, like that can feel like a more, um, you know, potentially time period where you want to be more out and social, and like creating something or putting your creations out there, but I'd say like really turning towards that as like a guiding post with the feminine.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, like ways to express your creativity without a goal, as well as super nice like, yeah, like painting without a goal or drawing or singing, or you know, I think that there's so much for women around connection connecting to our throat which, if we think about it, the throat, the throat is deeply connected to our cervix along the cervical spine and along the parasympathetic nervous system.
Speaker 2:So, and think about women like yeah, like in birth, and like there's always like that, that vocal aspect, because as you open your throat chakra, your cervix begins to open as well, and the cervix is like that's what all your creative endeavors need to go through to come out into the world, or you know, like, so I love that that idea as well yeah and I think I think so much of it for me is in that, like slowness and that fluidity and and like all the small moments throughout the day, like how can you be connected to that sensual part of you, like pausing, placing your hand on your heart, like feeling the sun on your face, going to smell the flowers, like getting flowers and putting them in your home and looking at them and making like beautiful meals, like I think it's really about just like enjoying the sensual pleasures and lighting incense and anything that smells good to you. Like those are very like simple things and, yeah, I think, on the bigger ask, like the bigger realm of it would be really starting to tune in and notice your body and notice your emotions and seeing if you yeah, like can, can just allow them. I mean, that's maybe more of the masculine element, that can be this like deep presence, you know, and that's why they're so beautiful to have both of them here and they're like their healthiness or their fullness, instead of like the distorted parts of the masculine and the feminine. But, um, I think it's just giving yourself more allowance to do what you want to do and not do what you think you should or need to do. And that can even come in with these overlays of like.
Speaker 2:When I was studying Ayurveda, like that, it really brought me into some unhealthy, actually restrictive, eating habits and like restricting, so even even noticing those more subtle layers of like, what am I not allowing myself?
Speaker 1:And you know, like yeah yeah, I think that's really great and just really simple, everyday moments of pause and, you know, being in the moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, look to Mother Earth too for how she moves, Like being going out and walking alone is so powerful in the woods, or just like right around the street and just like what does the feminine look like in a relationship?
Speaker 1:so what would that look like?
Speaker 2:feminine and masculine roles in relationships yeah, I feel like I'm still really learning what that means, because I think there's like the misunderstandings of what feminine and masculine mean, because in this context, you know both of these elements live and within all of us, no matter what gender you are.
Speaker 2:And yeah, I feel like, as you, I think that there's there is a bigger you know the feminine side of you. It can be the more like receptive, maybe more fluid, creative, whereas you know the masculine side of you can be that like beautiful structure and that devotional presence and that that courage and like the, also like the manifestation sometimes of the actual like the feminine can have the idea and the the masculine can actually bring it forth and like finish it. Um, yeah, so it's. It's really interesting to work with these archetypes within you and you can see them, you know you can feel them on the sides of your body. You know your left side is your feminine and your right side is more related to your masculine and, yeah, I really I find myself trying to understand those energetics within me and and my partnership as well, and how we flow together and yeah, what would you say are qualities of a healthy masculine, as opposed to, because I feel like we we give masculine kind of a hard time sometimes, you know.
Speaker 1:But there are, of course, there's duality and everything goodness there, of course right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, like the masculine can be so stabilizing to the feminine, you know, such like an anchor point and, like I said again, that that presence and when you've had someone, like someone just witness you and hold space for you, like that is such a masculine presence, like without trying to change anything, like just being there with it, yeah, and it does feel kind of like that, that deep, like loyalty, you know that loyalty and that protection, that protection of like that which is sacred, yeah, and I think there is so much distortion of the masculine as like, yeah, just overly competitive and overly logical and overly, yeah, protective, to the point that it's not, you know, supportive. But yeah, I think we're all kind of learning how to. I feel like the rising of the feminine is drawing the masculine back into his kind of like right state or there you know there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure I could see that I was talking to a friend I think it was like a year or two ago and we were talking about how, like I naturally I feel like have more masculine energy than feminine, so like trying to bring more feminine energy into my life and my practices and how I communicate and all that type of stuff, and I feel like my partner has more like feminine energy, um, just as very passive and very go with the flow and very like you know different examples of that, and we kind of landed on my friend and I landed on. Well, if you Lauren me step into more feminine, you can allow him to be into more of a masculine, which is exactly what you're saying in a broader way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've seen that show up in my relationship as well, like this. I mean, we always want our partners or people in our life to be be different, you know, and there's so much like I can speak for myself like I he is my, my partner is my greatest mirror.
Speaker 2:You know there's so much projection there, though that, like, I throw so much of my wounds at him and you know, sometimes he internalizes it or sometimes he can see clearly like. You know, that's just a full-on projection, but I do think that, in the end, like is an element of like, yeah, like self-responsibility too, like you said, and just like. All right. Well, if I want things to be different, then I probably have to look within first yeah, absolutely, because I mean we love control.
Speaker 1:I think women especially love.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think everyone but women too, like love control and love controlling things, controlling the people around us, controlling all of this stuff um sure, because it makes you feel like you have some sense of safety, yeah, or some sense of, yeah, like power of, like exactly this, this great mystery of life yeah and it is a mystery for sure.
Speaker 2:yeah, no, I think partnership throughout my life has been my biggest, like evolution, you know, like just so much growth and all of the relationships, and especially, yeah, the one now like there's, there's I, we both um, our Venus sign is in Scorpio and Venus rules the you know, love and romance and passion and pleasure, and they're both in Scorpio, both me and my partner are both in Scorpio and it's really like informed us in the way that we relate where it's like, yeah, like my whole, my whole astrological chart is kind of pointing towards like you heal deeply in a relationship and like relationships can feel very intense and heavy for you, but also like they are the things that like transform you the most, basically, and so, yeah, I've always felt a big charge moving into relationships. I'm like I never have a honeymoon phase. It's always like straight to like okay let's get into it, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so you can yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't want to speak too much for him, but he's he's definitely experienced, just like my, my pulling, pulling forth the, the parts of him that he didn't really want to see. But in the end I know that like it's also supported both of us and growing and evolving a lot. But I can feel really uncomfortable, yeah, in relationship and you're like what is mine and what is yours and are we both, you know, experiencing? But I feel like so much, so much of life is projection. It's pretty crazy when you start to realize it.
Speaker 2:I'm like what isn't, like everything is a mirror it's so true, and then it gets trippy and it can even be like frustrating really, because you're like I don't want to be projecting all this on all these things and people, and you know yeah, I think that comes back to like that self-compassion and like, all right, this is how I'm feeling right now and this is how it is, and like, as you continue to hold yourself through it, I do feel like there's a softening of it and like there is an alchemizing of it as you turn towards these, these portals of what I see as initiation, these like dark nights of the soul, which can again happen once a month if you really let you know, allow your yourself to like feel into your your luteal phase specifically, and I think there's also been like a programmed fear of the darkness, but it's like we all came from darkness, like, if you believe at least, like in the big bang and like the explosion of all life, and you think of, like we came from then the oceans and then, like we all were born from wombs that were dark and like watery and quiet, and like I feel like that energy, this, this like divine mother is like you know, she says you know there's nothing that you could ever do that would make me stop loving you, and like to say that to yourself like yeah, yeah, like that is.
Speaker 2:That is something that I feel is really powerful. It's just this unconditional love.
Speaker 1:It really is, though. Like it really is, though, and it really is, this trust and love of self, I mean, it really all comes back to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, we were the ones that have to live with ourselves for the rest of our lives. You know, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:And to keep coming back and keep coming back to self and to make that like imagine never coming back to self, how you know how crazy you would feel.
Speaker 2:And you, I think you asked a little bit before um about like my practices currently and how I'm working with the divine feminine. And yeah, like I didn't grow up religious at all, and I do look back and I do I see like that connection to God or source and the universe as being extremely important and I think more and more people don't have that connection and I think that it can be really difficult to navigate humanity without that connection. And for me, I've had different goddesses show up in life. I've worked with Kali, the Hindu goddess, a lot and then more recently I mentioned her, anana, the Sumerian goddess of love and war.
Speaker 2:My practice has really looked like yeah, like I said, I think it's really important sometimes to notice where your energy is drawn and if you have like a certain archetype or myth or goddess or plant or anything that you're drawn to like, bring that into your spiritual practice and let it support you and be like a um, yeah, like a guidepost, because you can't always do this work alone and there's not always the support of like another person. So I've really been valuing these different archetypes that have been arising in my life and I feel like once you kind of like look into it a little bit and, like you know, start to orient towards the, the divine feminine, the divine mother, like you will start to really notice more and more synchronicity and notice these, these archetypes arise, and so they've definitely been very supportive for me. Like I said, wild Woman showed up really hard at one point in my life and, yeah, it's always funny to look back on your life and see kind of the different threads and the pebbles that led you to where you are currently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thank you for mentioning that about sort of God, the divine, the spiritual aspect of it, because while we keep saying you know, you know, love self back to self, blah, blah, blah, there is like divinity as well, waiting to hold you, waiting to guide you, waiting to protect you, your angels, your guides, all of those things that, yes, you're coming back to self, but also there is that spiritual, energetic element of yeah, they're all, they all are you and you are God, and that is so difficult for us in this human experience to like.
Speaker 2:I think that is our, our journey, is we forget it and then we remember it again, or we get these moments of like, of feeling that unity, but, like you know, I believe what we come from and what we go to after death is like pure love and consciousness, you know, and that is that is. You know, that is God to me, or goddess, or whatever. Um, and again, I think there was, there may be at certain points in time, was this deeper understanding of that as humans, and I think that really like connecting to the cycles and to nature, and like there was, if you look at early, all early, like art is basically like clay sculptures of women's bodies, of, like the goddess of mother earth, um, because that, yeah, that source, energy, is so clearly imbued in everything that you know that she offers us, and so I do feel like that that split, you know that split between our humanity and divinity goes really deep, and like to remember that we are fully human and fully divine and we are meant to like through our humanity, like through, I believe, like all those feelings that you don't want to see, like the shame and the, you know, like the resentment, the jealousy, like through those and through accepting them, releasing them, alchemizing them, you can reach divinity, which I feel like. There's this kind of ascension idea of like, oh, I have to be up and out and just meditate and not think about anything and have these thoughts, but I, I, I personally believe it's the opposite.
Speaker 2:I believe that like, yeah, we are meant to be fully human here and and experience the fullness of all of our emotions. Um, and I think there, yeah, there's a lot of permission there to be your most authentic self, you know, not at, like, the expense of actually hurting others, um, but like, yeah, like, I think that that's that's, is such a, that's such a like a Mary Magdalene and the true teachings of what I, what I've seen of Jesus is like you know and Inanna means too, I am, and Jesus in Aramaic would have been saying I am the way you know, before Christianity was changed into what it is today like, and that means like you are the way again, like the way to God is you, it's through you, it's like you're not going to get these teachings outside of you, right, you know, and like, self-actualization is the way, and I think that is so beautiful. Yeah, wow powerful stuff yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's definitely the medicine that I've needed to hear in life that my like, my humanity is divine yeah because I yeah, like I said, I'm. I'm one that just like so much, so much comes up for me and I'm fascinated in it also, so I allow it, um, but it's definitely here and I I would be like in a psych ward if I was not, you know, like accepting it at this point in my life. Yeah, I, yeah, I totally was burned at the stake many times.
Speaker 1:I'm the first to admit that yeah yeah, for sure thank you so much for sharing your wisdom.
Speaker 1:you have so much to share and it's a gift that you are willing to be seen, that you're willing to share, that you are willing to be seen, that you're willing to share, that you are willing to put it out there and give it to other people. It's huge Thank you from me and all the women that you are yet to serve. If people want to find you, if they want to know about your business, anything like that, where can they find you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can find me on Instagram at song of ma. Song dot of dot ma. And then um my website. It's song of macom Um and yeah, you can reach out to me there and hear about all the things I'm offering right now, which are your pelvic bowl so holistic pelvic care. You can do in-person sessions in winchester, virginia, or I also offer them all online um feminine embodiment coaching, and then I've been doing the one-on-one healing retreats um, that's so cool.
Speaker 1:I love that. What a great idea, oh yeah, it's been amazing.
Speaker 2:And then, um, yeah, I also am offering myself as a birth attendant um postpartum. But that's case by case.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Rachel. Yeah, thank you, Lauren. Thank you.