Fertility and REST

I started teaching my new Fertility Series last week.

It's going to be awesome. And the group is completely different from last time.

I also just found out that HALF of my students from the first group are now pregnant.

Now, this could be because of the series OR it could be because, well, they were trying to get pregnant. I like to think it's because of the series.

Witht he new group, most of our time together was spent talking, and sharing our stories. Then we did the Fertility Program written by John Friend. (Which I recommend doing every single day if nothing else can be done, while trying to conceive.) THEN I had to break the hard news right off the bat: if you're trying to conceive, you have to quit drinking coffee. (Doctors say one cup a day; I say kick it cold turkey and start drinking nettle tea instead.)

AND, the second bit of hard news I had to break to them: you have to start taking things OFF your plate. And you need to really reduce your exercising. If you're having a hard time getting pregnant, the idea is to reduce the heat in your body and the speed and overwhelm in your life. And in your asana practice.

Women who get an "unexplained infertility" diagnosis react with the same level of stress as someone who has been told they have cancer, or HIV.

That's a lot of stress.

I was told I needed to rest and relax more when I couldn't get pregnant after nine months of trying. That did not go over well with me. And I wanted to punch out every person who said "Just relax and forget about it, and you'll get pregnant!" But it turns out that, in a way, they were right.

So instead of doing what I usually did and do when I'm stressed, which is to kick up my asana practice and work REALLY hard, I went the other way. I rested. I restored. I gained ten pounds. (Fuck!) (Kate Moss has famously said, "Nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels," and I love that! But I say "Too much sweat and endorphins can't compare to how good holding my baby feels." Or something like that.) But I still rested, and I still restored. I tailored my asana practice to support the phases of my menstrual cycle, so that I was resting while bleeding, more active while ovulating, and working hard but more along the lines of endurance than repetition and sweat during the latter half of my cycle. And I would rest during the period of possible implantation.

I think the most important thing I did toward getting pregnant (aside from the obvious) was to take a month off from teaching. I mean, I have been teaching weekly classes pretty much year round since 1999, ranging from ten to two a week; so to go on hiatus from that was kind of a shock to my system. And it must have worked, because the following month I got knocked up.

So I tell my fertility students to learn how to rest. We all need it. We all live in one of two modes: ON or OFF.

I remember the last time my teacher Mary was here, and we were all practicing NOT to build our energy and excitement, we were moving more slowly and staying completely connected and rooted down, moving from our feet and legs and pelvis and not so much from our upper trapezius/shoulders ALL THE TIME (monitor this in yourself next time you're practicing, it is eye opening) and it was remarkable how slow and low and tired the energy in the room got. The intention of this work was to stay connected to our True Selves as we practiced, to stay rooted down, to go inward and stay plugged in to our Selves instead of letting the mind or the ego take the lead; and the truth was that we were all TIRED. SO VERY TIRED. I think it's profound.

I think most women do too much.

I think less is often more.

I think deeper is more accurate, softening more important than just about anything else in a practice or in a life. I think there is true strength there. And I think there are many, many ways to find it in oneself and in one's life and practice.

I loved something Desiree Rumbaugh said once, that we must learn to grow stronger and stronger on the inside, and softer and more supple on the outside.

In Chinese Medicine, they will talk about heat and cold in the body. At one point, my acupuncturist told me, 20 years ago, that I had waaay too much heat in my body, but that it was so buried it read as cold. I have pursued the course toward this core self, this core of heat beyond the cold, ever since. And the goal is to let the heat release so there can then, finally, be balance.

I want to say again how powerful acupuncture and inversions are in regulating my menstrual cycle and thus, my sanity.

I had a miscarriage in September. It is the first and only one I have ever had. It was a miracle, and it was an accident. I really want to have a second baby, but we're not actively "trying." Long story short, I miscarried. You never know why these things happen. But my period was late, then I bled a lot, then my next period was late too. I went to my doctor, who took a bloodtest for my hormone levels and immediately put me (back) on VITEX, which regulates the menstrual cycle. I started my period the next day. Normal period. Then I started bleeding again 18 days later. Went to my other doctor. She said if my next period came any sooner than Day 21 we'd have to biopsy my uterus. Never words you want to hear: "biopsy your uterus." So three trips to the acupuncturist later, and adding DiM supplementation to my Vitex, my period is here again, on Day 24, just like it always was before.

And I'm slightly less irritable, bitchy, thin-skinned and enraged than I was these past few weeks. Still crying at pictures of kittens, or when my son puts his little hand on my face and says, "Mommy." But not as much. And God intervened last week, kept me from attacking that poor bastard at Quizno's who was rough and mean to his teenage son while we were all standing in line.

I feel like I've caught and cured a potentially dangerous imbalance. And meanwhile, I've taken it slightly easier with my asana practice, meditated and chanted more, gone upside down with support more often, eaten a lot less, therapized, done about eight physical therapy treatments for my pelvis and pelvic floor (writing on that coming soon) and written a lot more of my own personal stuff.

So what I'm saying is that it is so worth it to observe and respect our cycles. All of them. While trying to conceive or otherwise.

I've found that the Truth I thought I was living turned out to be my ego, which is a fine and lovely part of me, it's just not the heart's deepest desire or even Reality.

I remember John saying during a teacher training once that not only did we have to work really hard and push ourselves (as needed) but we also had to learn how to really rest, and rest DEEPLY. And it's not even the quantity of time taken to rest, it's the quality. You can rest VERY deeply without falling asleep in savasana, or in yoga nidra. But I do think this is something we have to learn. And practice.

This is all relatively new for me; please don't think I know all the answers or that these musings or even my practices and what works and worked for me will work for you or for anyone else. I just know that I've heard these teachings in many other places, like in Deep Massage training with David Lauterstein. That there is a brain wave, a place of ease, that lies between two poles. That hardly anyone knows how to rest, and the body needs it, the mind needs it, the soul needs it. We're interested in being in the middle state, the space between ON FULL BLAST and OFF, ASLEEP. We're interested in Truth. In being awake. Full of peace.

And if you can get just a taste of that, you might want to go back again.