Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful: Experience the Natural Power of Pregnancy & Birth with Gurmukh

Welcome to Mama Goddess. I'm your host, Alexandra J. Johnson. This podcast is all about rocking your goddess life, creating vibrant health and celebrating motherhood and family life. It's about living an authentically awesome life. Let's have.

Hello and welcome. I'm Alexandra J. Johnson and today's guest is Gurmukh. Gurmukh is the co founder and co director of Golden Bridge Night Moon, Los Angeles and New York's premier center for the study and practice of Kundalini yoga and meditation. For more than four decades, students from around the world have sought out her classes in Kundalini yoga, meditation and pre and postnatal care. She is also the author of the amazing book Bountiful Beautiful Experience the Natural Power of Pregnancy and Birth with Kundalini Yoga and Meditation. Welcome, Gurmukh.

Thank you very much, Alexandra. Thank you.

It's so great to be with you. I read your book a year before I got pregnant. It was, I think, potentially the first, if I'm remembering correctly, it was the first book that I read before getting pregnant. So it was an amazing book and been such a valuable resource for me throughout my pregnancy so far. So thank you so much for creating it.

Thank you.

So I'm curious to start off with yoga. Like, what does yoga mean and what is Kundalini Yoga for those people who may not be aware of it?

Right. Well, yoga, basically that word, it means union. It means union in Sanskrit. What does union mean? With yourself, with the creative force, whatever you call it, with other human beings, with trees, with everything. It makes you. It helps you to feel like there's a oneness and there's a plan in the universe. It's not random. But then you top. You put on top of it Kundalini. Kundalini works on a different part of the brain. That part is the frontal lobe, you might say. So let's just say when a person starts out in their journey this in. In a lifetime, and if you want to call it reincarnation, oftentimes I start out in a very low center of survival like we did historically. And then as time goes on and reincarnations or the human being develops over these thousands and thousands and thousands of years, they start going through all. You can call them the yoga system, the chakras. But basically from a scientific point of view, from a psychological point of view, it's from survival to consciousness to enlightenment. And Kundalini yoga gives you the power of enlightenment with practice and of course, with grace. Like Buddha, like Jesus, like Mohammed, and that's the center of the brain that it opens. And it's very, very fascinating. And one never tires of it. And it's always exhilarating to do it. People find a dimension on and on as years go on that they didn't even know was possible. So that's what it does.

That's amazing. And you've been teaching and studying for over 40 years, right?

Yeah, about 43 years I've been practicing. And every day it seems to me, amaze me of. Of what it can do for you. It never ever ends.

That's so great. So what's the. For a pregnant woman, what's the benefit for her to start practicing this for her and also for her baby?

Oh, it's beyond. If you just study the development of the in utero, most people just think, oh, I'm just having a baby. But what's happening is the cells are dividing with thought and breath. And what a mother eats, everything she does, she puts into that little soul. And that soul divides those memory banks of what she was thinking, what she was saying. I mean, it's almost like a mirror to the mother. A child is a mirror to the mother. And so if she is conscious of that, it's going to make a lot different. Human beings, there's a lot more graceful and I might say easier life because they'll be living in another dimension than just survival dimension or gossip dimension or fear dimension or angry dimension. Because the mother was conscious in the pregnancy and in the birth and 40 days after the birth and even before conception. As you read the book ahead of time, so a mother can be, be prepared to know the job at hand in those nine months. It's not just random and whatever and on and on. It's the biggest educational time of the child's whole life is those nine months.

Wow, that's amazing. And you see this in, you know, if you have your prenatal yoga teacher training and working with pregnant women, you see this happening. That women have easier, maybe pregnancies and just really step into pregnancy in a whole different way when they're more aware and conscious.

Absolutely. But not just for them. The outcome of this little soul is going to be like night and day. For instance, you've moved to Ohio. You've chosen that as a location to be pregnant and to bring your child into the world and to live there. I mean, that was conscious. It's so different than just choosing. If you could choose an environment. A lot of people don't have a choice. Or what about just choosing to get pregnant or not you know, that just can't right now. There's no education, there's no degree. There's no licenses. There's no nothing for anybody to have a baby. It's the biggest job on planet Earth with the least amount of education and of knowingness and of preparation. It's just a random situation right now. These people don't know. They don't understand. And even if they did know this, it may not change. It's only for a certain percentage of people like yourself. A lot of people wouldn't even agree with it.

Mm. Right. Yeah. It takes work, like you were saying. You know, everything that you're doing and thinking, like, not everyone wants to put the work in.

No.

No.

Are they ready just, like, to do it? In a lot of times, souls have to come in on this planet very asleep in consciousness, just as the parents had to come in various sleep and consciousness, just like we've all come in asleep and consciousness. Then as you start seeing the journey and you get the grace to climb the wrongs of consciousness like yourself, then you see the importance of everything I say. But most people don't. But that's okay. You know, they line up at McDonald's, and that's okay because that's their world right now. So if you look at it from this point of view, everybody is perfectly as they are. That there's so many people. Like a little bud. I'm sitting in my backyard, and I have these jasmines from Burma, and they've been growing the last two or three years, and they seem so slow. And I came back from Mount Shasta a couple days ago on a incredible healing retreat. And they're. They're blooming now, and there's hundreds of blooms, but two years, there were no blooms. So more and more people are longing to bloom. They're longing to awaken. Why? Because there's so much pain and so much unhappiness. So it's a pretty receptive time as we go into the age.

Yeah. And then what a gift, too, for. For those that are ready and willing and excited about the journey to bring children into the world with this consciousness. I just get so excited about it that the.

Yeah, because there's so many of them now, too. They come to my yoga classes when they're like, four years old. I'm talking about regular hard adult yoga class, hour and a half. And they come there and they sit there and they do it. And then they come up on the stage afterwards. This one little girl, especially Tallulah, and she sits there and she stares at everyone as though she's the teacher. And she asked me if she could have a birthday party at Golden Bridge and if I would teach them yoga. I mean, these kids, 1990, 90 or 91, there was scientifically proven to. There was an added. I think it was an added chromosome to the children coming in now. And so they're just brighter. But with that comes the challenge. So much. We know how much autism is on the rise, we know how much things are on the rise, that parents have to know what causes all this. So they can. But that takes education and consciousness to take diet consciousness, it takes not getting your kids vaccinated consciousness. They almost have to go against all of that, which we stand for. You know, of course you vaccinate. Of course you give your kids meat, all that. No, no. We're getting a message every place we look of. No, but nobody wants that. No. Because like you said, it takes discipline. It takes change. You have to walk your own path and not, you know, not just walk the mainstream. You have to be very brave to be conscious.

Yeah, totally.

I love that.

I love the. I definitely feel like that. And I feel like there's the women who are choosing to do this and parents choosing to do it. It's a very brave and courageous act because, like you said, there's McDonald's, and everyone's telling you when you're pregnant, you.

Need to be eating meat.

And it's not.

You don't have protein and all that. No, you don't. But people are. You know, they're just not quite ready for most people. But the ones that are, they'll catch on like the hundredth monkey. They'll look over at that family and see that they don't get sick all the time. They don't have to take meds all the time. They look healthy, they have energy. Mom's not overweight after pregnancy, and on and on. I think I'll ask for what she's doing. And that's how it's. Mm.

Yes, totally. And like you said, too, not everyone's ready. But there's also, like, I do feel what you're probably seeing as well, too, that everyone is hungry for something else. Like, it's clearly not working. So it's very exciting.

Like Mick Jagger's song, Can't get no Satisfaction. That's what people have been trying. Money, things, possessions, little family units that they thought would be so perfect. And the kids go on drugs or they get sick, or, you know, it's just, you know, it's A cute idea to have a family. It's a cute idea. Everyone does it. To have a baby, to have a family and everything. But it's so big. It's the biggest thing you'll do your whole life. Because once you have a child, they are forever your child and you're forever their mother, even if you write them off. And that's who all those homeless people are. Mothers just gave up on them. She cut psychic umbilical cord. Because you can't end up on the street if your mother is always connected to you in prayer. You can't. It's impossible. It's against the law of consciousness, you see. But it's big. And people think, oh, I'll just have this cute little kid and then I'll go off to college here. Hopefully they're always with you forever and ever, because that's what a mother is.

That's beautiful. So, speaking of beautiful, I'm very curious. On your book, you have the bountiful. Beautiful and blissful. I love those words. And I'm just curious of what. Why did you choose those words? And how are we.

Oh, good question. Those words are Yogi Bhajan, my teachers. Whereas he came to America from India in 1969, and he left his body eight years ago when he was 75. But he used those words when we were all. I met him in 1970. We were all hippies. We were chicks. And he could not believe that a woman could be called a chicken. He said, you are an eagle. You soar above the whole earth. And without a woman, there's no human race. And without a powerful woman, there will never, ever be peace on this earth. And we see it, don't we? See it. Look at all the countries where the women are put on the back seats. Women aren't allowed to this, allowed to that. Those are the countries where there is so much strife, where the man tries to rule and he has no tools because he lives in his lower centers, which is fighting, running, and everything that goes on in those countries. And the women just lay low. Now, countries where women have risen to their rightful place as leaders, those countries are soaring. I don't mean leaders that you act like a man. I mean as a woman. You project. You walk into a room and your presence is felt. You can shift energy without saying a word. That's our power. That's our beauty, our bountifulness and our blissfulness. So he gave us those three words because he said, to live in your grace is to live in your power and to be A mother and do that. That's how we change the world. That's how we change the world, through each child, each family that the mother rules. The men, they're great, but they don't know what we know. We're 16 times more intuitive than them. You know that expression, behind every man, great man is a woman.

True.

Behind every bad man, evil man, stupid man is a stupid woman because she doesn't know. She doesn't know of her power and so uses her sexuality or old programming as a child. Of the father, daughter role, the whiny role, whatever it is, the submissive role, whatever it is. When she steps into her grace, she steps into her power. That makes her bountiful, which means prosperous. Bounties are beautiful from the inside out, no matter what age, size, form and bliss. Culture simply means happy. It's a big job. And if women don't know this, then they follow the patterns of their ancestors, meaning their mothers and their grandmothers. And it gets worse and worse as you go back, especially in the West. But if you study indigenous ones, if you. You study in Tibet, which we've been to three or four times, the woman runs the show there, she handles the money, she's the landowner, and somehow they got it right over there. A lot of indigenous. Have you studied the great. The great grandmothers who travel the world round for healing the scars. You mean these women? From every indigenous from Tibetan to the Maoris to the Aborigines to Central South American, Native American. Those women are so powerful, just sitting in their presence knocks you over much more than sitting in powerful men's presence. There's a whole different. But we are the mother, we are nurture, we are the ones that will bring peace to the world. And if your contribution is just to bring one peaceful male or female into the world and you've done your job. Yogi Bhajan used to say, all we need is one Jesus to come back or one Buddha to come back. And then we've done it. I mean, if you look at how many holy people are even left on the planet. That's why I pray every day for His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, that he stays in his body long enough to give us his presence.

You know, Beautiful.

I mean, look at Amit, look at Amaji. She can't even read or write. She was thought of as a mentally retarded child and treated like a slave. And she rose to the heights of. Of somebody who helps hugs. And yet, yeah, it's like, amazing.

Wow. So in the. You're just Talking about, and you said it a few times, prayer, like, how important prayer is. What are some of the ways that. Like, what is prayer for you? And what are some of the ways that a woman can pray during her pregnancy for herself, for her baby, for the future? Do you have any recommendations for that?

Well, I've changed a lot in my form of prayer. I go within to find the God, the mother, the nurturer, the nature within myself now. I'm less attracted to looking for God outside almost completely now and any other human being. I use people for inspiration. I read constantly. I like to travel and visit with very highly evolved people, spend time with them. But I don't look outside myself much anymore. I like to watch the inner workings of my mind and to detect it enough that I can fit in a prayer for change of my own consciousness. Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, so much. So much of what we've done for so many years as a human being is look outside of ourselves. Please, God, save us from the flood. Save us from this. You know, it never saved anybody really, when you think about still earthquakes go on, and the poor African Americans which prayed and prayed for a God somewhere and they were just tortured ruthlessly. Where if we find that essence within that God within, we have a mantra. God and me. Me and God are one. Yogi Bhajan said, never look towards anyone else for the truth. You have to have the experience on the inside of you that that's the truth. And that's a kundalini of does. It gives you the experience on the inside of the frequency of which you unite with the oneness, whether you call it God, Buddha, nature. In the end, it doesn't even matter if you don't find that essence on the inside. And that's the best thing a mother can do in her pregnancy and in her whole life, especially the first three years, is to stay in that meditative mind. Now, maybe a woman is Christian or Jewish and she has a way to take that traditional religion and bring it back inside herself. But if she's only taking herself to the outside, then she's missed the boat. That takes an evolved human being. That takes time. Because we like to go into group religions first, group first. But for you, maybe walking through nature in Ojai and just walking silently by yourself with your breath, with your baby will give you more of an essence than going into any church or any temple or any anything. You have to have that personal relationship with whatever you call it, that gives you breath.

I love that.

That makes sense. Yeah. I love that.

Beautiful. It's very, very inspiring. And I love that too. Just that you can find it anywhere. You can pray and connect to God or the divine, whatever you want to call it, anywhere, you know, whether that's on a hike or in nature, in meditation, that there's. It's always available. I love that.

Yogi Bhajan, our teacher, would always say, if you don't see God in all, and you don't see God at all, and in these nine months of pregnancy, you have a great opportunity to break patterning in your own mind that you don't want to pass on to your child. And that can be done through certain meditations and creates, which we have. We have over 5000 meditations. Yogi Bhajan never taught anything twice. And if you look at Bonaco, beautiful principal, you can find a meditation that probably will suit what you need to do to grow. And because otherwise, just as our mothers, or maybe not your mother, but the mother's mother's mothers way back when, that were not conscious, all they do is dump not meaning, not being mean. They dump the patterning of their own mind that they got from their grandmothers inside the baby as the cells survive. So say a mother is afraid of not having any money, then she will give that offering to her child, and her child will struggle until perhaps they can start yoga or meditation to see that it's a false belief my mother gave me. We are bound to put it on. Blissful. You can save your children a lot, a lot, a lot of going through it if you don't have to give it to them in the first place. Mm. So the nine months is a big introspection of your own life, but it's really better to do it even, or begin doing it before you even start your pregnancies, before conception. So you see the work ahead, the pavement that must be met and reached and walked before you even have a conscious pregnancy and a conscious conception. And again, most people aren't willing or they don't agree with it, but that's okay, because there's a lot of, might I say, for want of a better word, ordinary souls that need to come back on a lower rung of consciousness. I mean, there's millions. We have 7 billion people out there, and there's a lot of them that come back poor to bad health, to terrible families. But that's what they had to come back to learn this time, the life for yourself. And those people, hopefully, that are listening to this, they would hear it, but most people will just Put on AM radio and you know, whatever all those programs are, because that's what they like to listen to. That's their frequency. Like a radio station.

Yeah.

So there's no judgment. That's the point. There's no judgment. However, anybody reincarnates when a mother knows or doesn't know.

Yeah, totally. And I think that's great too, the no judgment. Because I know, I feel like in many ways, as I'm getting closer to birth our baby, that my whole life is preparing me and my journey is preparing me to become a mother. And every day I'm like, wow, I've shed this and I've worked on this and I'm stepping into motherhood. Like, I can feel that transformation happening, but there's always more work to do. So I love that you said no judgments for us women to be like, okay, there's, it's going to be a never ending journey of growing and expanding. I don't, I'm not perfect.

Well, in life it's on and on and on until one can reach that state of enlightenment and then it's questionable if they still don't have to completely still continue to fine tune, fine tune their minds, you know?

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. I don't know that yet. If I get there, I'll let know you, you know.

Please let us know. Yeah, yeah, I will.

I'll call it.

That's great. I also love, which I didn't used to love the daily practice. And I know you're really committed to that, your daily practice. But that, that's actually fun for me. Before it was like in order to get somewhere I would meditate or do these things, but I actually like, enjoy them. I like eating organization. Like, I don't want to not have these disciplines because they're so much fun for me.

Yeah. Plus I think what makes it worthwhile is you say, wow, I feel better or wow, I don't get as pissed off or angry, afraid, whatever it is, hey, this stuff must work. It has to have a reason, has to have an experience to cause a person to return to it. It can't be just rules because rules are made to be broken. You know, let's say someone, I have to become a vegetarian, but they don't really want to. They haven't really had an experience of the pros or cons. And so they'll do it for a while, but then they'll go back because you have to have a, an experience of the worthwhileness of it or why do it.

Right.

And that sometimes Takes just. It takes a journey. It takes a journey back and forth, in and out. But I think the most important thing for a conscious person is to pass no judgment on their family, on their friends, on anything. How can we do that? We don't know where anybody's at. We don't know where we've come from and where we have to go this lifetime. Yogi Bhajan used to say, if we could see the journey that anyone's taken, we would just cry and cry because of the hardships of the being killed, of having killed, of being in wars. I mean, we've done so much to just even be sitting here and talking today.

Totally. Yeah. And then also on that, I just had the flash too. You talk about it of like, I feel more gratitude towards my parents. And you talk about that in your book too, of having gratitude for your parents and for your path and for your suffering and just everything that you've experienced to be where you are right now, pregnant with. With your child. Right, A little bit about that.

And also. Well, the appreciation that a mother has her own family will come more when she starts raising her own family and understanding that she has. We have more tools now than our mothers. Just think, you know, their circumstances and whatever their circumstances were, how you even sometimes got out alive, you know, I mean, anger itself is enough to you. You will become angry one time maybe at your baby that won't stop crying for some reason, that you'll just be beside yourself. All kinds. I've had what I have one daughter. She's 28. She's a beautiful, beautiful soul. But I remember one time when she was little, she didn't cry much. She was born at home with his 40 days. It was wonderful, divine. I was almost 43 years old and I was so appreciative to have her. But I remember one time she just started crying and crying. There's nothing I could do to get her to stop. And I just wanted. I had that feeling for a moment of what mothers do to get children to stop. You know, they throw them into the crib and then they hit the wall. They don't know what to do because you feel so helpless. That it was a good experience for me. I mean, she did stop and I didn't throw against the wall or anything like that. But how if a mother didn't have any tools and she had a terrible life, how women do things to children that so asleep. But my heart opened up to all women whose circumstances weren't as divine as mine were, you might say the empathy that comes. I remember my mother had four kids. My father had cancer, she had to work, and yet she kept it all together with so much grace and so much dignity. It was unbelievable. Four kids under two with a father that was sick and she had to work, and yet it all worked. And we're four wonderful adults now who are very close and very appreciative of our lives.

And do you think that's important for women and couples to do, to really take the time to find that gratitude and appreciation for their parents? Because I know a lot of people are triggered by their parents or may not have relationships with their parents and things like that. What's your thought on that?

Well, I don't think you can. I don't think you can. I don't think you can. I think you consciously go into that. But for some people, it just takes time. And some people never get over it. I would say to become conscious again, to be a conscious that I always say to people had the most racked out, you know, parents, childhood. I think if you can't hold on to anything nice or thankful, just remember one thing. And they say what they gave you life without that sperm and without that egg, you would not be here. And just the fact that you're sitting in front of mirror or yoga class, they did something and maybe it was so painful and you hated them so much that you were going to be eaten by this hate that you found another way to live. Whatever it was, it was a divine plan. And then I also say you chose your parents and you did to learn what you needed to learn. They learned whatever it was. So, you know, and also the baggage is so big to just go on and on about your parents. Parents. It's so boring. I get over it and get going. And that's where Kundalini Yoga really helps a lot. It helps you to get over all that. You know, you can go to therapy until you take your last breath. The reason I love Kundalini Yoga is like therapy inside your own head. Changing the cellular structure of your memories and people that get into it that are so whacked out or so angry. And I watch, I watch the transformation so much. It just blows my mind year in and year out. It's really a fast lane to change. And it's 40,000 years old. So ancient, but yet it's so timely right now.

I love that. Yeah, that's what you're talking about too. Like the prayer that it's part of. You know, it's your inward journey, discovering you not somebody telling you what you should do. It's kind of you, you healing yourself in many ways.

Yeah. I mean I had these three girls that we had a big Labor Day class and they were so darling. They were kind of like three hippie girls. And they all came from different backgrounds and they had all been in rehab when they were 14 years old and some, you know, those kind of survival rehabs in Utah that the Mormons do. Yeah, they were in that. And the other one was this and that and this and that. And they all sign up for teachers training. I said, why? Because after everything we've done, they were 21 and 24 years old. This stuff work. They said, this is the thing that gives me what I was searching for with all those drugs. And that's what so many of us I. So many drugs. When I was a hippie, I was looking for the same thing. I was looking for consciousness for myself. I was, I was just longing. I was so longing. And then I took my first class in 1970 and it did the trick on the inside of me. I didn't mean anything on the outside anymore. Very amazing. And one can also, in pregnancy there's certain restrictions. We don't do Breath of Fire, pull the energy locks on the inside, but there's so much. I have women that come back to regular classes now after like their kids are like 26 years old and they'll even take teachers training. It all started in the pregnancy, in the pregnancy classes, something awoken inside of them. And I've even had kids come back and take the teachers training. Almost like a remembrance of what their mothers did when they were in the womb. Because kids copy. And my, my daughter is a yoga teacher now, a meditative teacher now. My daughter was five and a half years old. She asked to go to India. We have a school in India. And she went when she was six and a half years old. We didn't want her to go, but she said I have to go. Of course we sent her with a group of kids and we knew the teachers and everything. She was there for 12 years and she's an extraordinary child. But I do know that so much of that came from those nine months in the womb. It's so, it's so big that that womb life that we can't even understand it. And the one girl, the 24 year old sweetie that lives in Hollywood was going to take teachers training. Her mother did Kundalini yoga in Tucson, Arizona. When I'm, when I was there, I guess she just told me this Yesterday, but it was kind of in her chromosomal makeup. Now she's back after 24 years. So it just, it just happens this way. It's like, it's so, it's so magical, those nine months. And it also helps mama to lift the fears of the birthing or the fears of being a good mother. It just takes those out because those again incurred from her own mother. So through those like the one exercise where your arms are out and the thumb is up and you're to take away fear and paranoia that's in the book. A woman, a mother, pregnant woman would do that for like three minutes a day. It would start lifting out and clearing out those memory banks that contain the field. It's scientific. They've done a lot of testing. MIT and Stanford and at ucla. I'm not too much into the scientific aspect because I know I experience that it works and so do so many other people.

As you were talking about the fear too and you talk about it in your book and just in the whole birthing culture there's so much fear and there's so much doubt and conditioning around it. What would you or what are some of your tips or recommendations for a woman to prepare for a positive birth experience like creating her ideal birth experience?

Well, a lot of it is where are you going to birth? If you pick a hospital, get ready. Because the only thing in the hospital, the only thing that people are there for what's right is birthing. The whole hospital is conditioned to what's wrong. There's nothing wrong with a pregnant woman. So they're trained to be very mindful of what's wrong. And if you have people overseeing your birth, looking for what's wrong, then it's projection and you know, they work with timing that time. This, that, this, that, this, that. If you really want to have a conscious, a fearless birth, do your birth outside of the hospital. You have to do the birth in the hospital. Surround yourself with doulas with like minded people. Try to find the best doctor who's pro no drug, who's pro timing is yours. Who's not an emotional or looking at the watch all the time. Then take a conscious childbirth education class. We have them at Golden Bridge and again they're with a yogi and a mother and she's also an RN labor and delivery nurse. Find the most qualified. Do not take your birthing class in a hospital because it's like going to a surgeon, going to the GAPS store. They're not going to tell you to go shopping at Nordstrom they're going to tell you to shop at Gaps. And so you don't want to take it. Walk up to five miles a day, do yoga, get a video or go to classes, work out things and talk a lot with your partner about what they feel about family, bed, vegetarianism, not inoculating your kids and staying home for 40 days after the baby's born. There's a lot. And it needs conversation and education. For the men, oftentimes it's just education again that she. That's why I like to teach couples, pregnant couples workshops, so the fathers can have the experience of what the woman is doing in those regular classes during the week, the pregnancy classes, so they can see they're just not fooling around. They're sitting, they're closing their eyes, they're meditating. And then I also talk to them about timeless subjects, about just the money aspect, you know. You know, they expect a woman to go back after, you know, six weeks when she doesn't want to. I mean, all these things should be done before one gets pregnant. But oftentimes, people wing it all the time. But it's not. It's all doable. And there's a lot, there's an infinite amount. But at the same time, to keep in mind that there's a miracle happening, it's that blessing. It's so big. It isn't just, oh, by the way, I'm pregnant. Right. You know, it's like the center most aspect of your whole life, especially first pregnancy, second, third, fourth, you got others that you have aspects.

Right.

But I would say it starts way before pregnancy really starts with the marriage solid or the relationship solid. Talking about different principles of life and agree upon them, you know, I mean, you don't say, I mean, we don't circumcise our children. And I see so much trauma and drama around it. It's just. It's so sad. That needs to be discussed and agreed upon in some way, not just leaving at random, because that seventh day comes in the Jew. And if the woman is so not wanting it and she's never stood up for it, I mean, it's like there's certain things that need to be agreed upon by both. And sometimes it takes education for the men. Why should the baby sleep between you? You know, you won't roll over and. And kill them unless you're drunk and then you should be in bed anyway. You know, there's different things. Why do we not circumcise? It needs to be educated. Not a ritualistic, masochistic Thing that they do. It's traditionally stupid. And it can be done in a ceremonial brisk. We have a rabbi in Santa Fe who will do a ceremonial brisk where on the seventh day at the covenant of God. Great, Give the baby to God, but you don't have to cut his penis while you're doing it. Right. It's just so many stupid things that we do because people live in old brains. New brain wouldn't even. Would even be a question. A new brain would never be a question to eat meat. But we've got so many people on planet Earth who live in old brains. And that's okay. That's perfect. But if you've got two old brains that live together, then they'll decide, oh, we have to get inoculated because the doctor says so. We have to get circumcised because the doctor said so. I have to take Pitocin because the doctor said so. Fine. If that's what they're doing, then we honor that. But if someone's looking for another way, then they need to discuss it and be on the same page about it as a couple. That's how I feel.

Yeah, definitely.

That's why it takes a lot of. There's a lot of discussion before people. Before people even conceive and say, oh, I'm gonna have a little baby. You know, Anyway, there's so.

And this.

I gotta go in a little bit. I gotta go in just a little bit.

Okay, perfect. Okay, awesome.

Tell me what you've been doing. Talk to me about your pregnancy. Did you want to get pregnant at this time? Tell me how you did.

Yes, we planned to get pregnant in January of 2012 or start trying, and we actually got pregnant right away. So we had been preparing before. So it was a preparation for me. I mean, it started preparing, you know, six months a year because I started. I read your book and just really preparing before and started a journal where, like, preparing. What do I. Who do I need to be to become a mother and to step into motherhood like six months before? So it's really beautiful to see that. My journal that I have from the start, and then to see us being pregnant and it's just been really, really.

Have you put down. Have you put any of that on a blog or anything? You should share.

I haven't yet, but we will when we share these interviews. We'll definitely share more of it, but it's been. I know you say in your book, too, that, you know, a lot of pregnancy, people say that it's really challenging and it's hard and you expect heartburn and nausea and throwing up and all these things. And I like how you challenge that, that it doesn't need to be like that. And I have not had that at all. Like it has been.

No, it does diet. It's so much. I mean, again, they're accepting old brain inflammation. Old brain inflammation. It's just. Yeah. Oh, good. Well, I Hope after your 40 days that you're sometime your journey into LA so I can meet this new soul.

Oh, yeah, I would love. Could you just share a little bit on the 40 days and why that's so important? Because I love that ritual.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not just a ritual in the sick space. That's my patron, India. But if you study Judaism and study many other indigenous people, they stay home 40 days. It makes sense because the mother needs to heal and sleep. Baby needs to bond and be with mama. We say no further than nine feet away from your baby. And if the baby's not on you, it's next to you and wearing a sling and just carrying your baby like they're still in the womb. That will make for such a secure baby for the rest of their lives. For the rest of their lives. Once they can connect with mama and nurse upon demand and sleep. And have the baby sleep between mama and papa and don't have visitors or only a few select ones that you feel the baby will benefit from. I know my mother was so dear, but I told her she could come on the 41st day, and she did. But those 40 days, my husband cooked for me because we had very, very little income, so I didn't have the luxury of a doula cooking and doing all that. But it was fine. He was a good cook, so he prepared the food and I was with Wa, and I slept. And I got up in the early morning and still did my sadhana. And sometime when the sun was going down, I put her on me. And we would take walks in the neighborhood where I didn't really see anybody. And we cover our children's heads, too. There's little bonnets, this. Little cotton bonnets. You can get high underneath because it keeps the tent gate protected, that soft spot, so energy is not going in and out, but it's being contained within the baby. And I kept her naked as much as possible, no weather permitted. And we just bath together. And it was. It was a bliss. And now we're so close. Close. It's unbelievable. And I know it came from that 40 days. It's. It's something that would change the face of the world if the mothers would do the 40 days. It's just, there's a magic, not just in your own family, but in the universal family. It's something, well, you'll, you'll see. It's so creamy and dreamy. And also watching them come from being on the other side to go back and let their eyes roll up, they're gone, they're back, they're gone, they're back. And then you watch the metamorphosis, the seventh, the eighth, the ninth, and then they get more here, more here, more here. It's just beyond the beyond. You get to understand their patterning. And also nursing isn't usually just, whoa, no problems. It usually has some challenges. And if you have the time to work on those challenges. And when you're, when you are quiet, when you're relaxed, when you're getting good food and plenty of rest, you'll have milk so much you can't believe it. The women that can't get milk are nervous, worried, on the phone, doing their emails, trying to carry on their business. Milk dries up because your blood turns into milk and your blood is your prison personality. Well, if your personality isn't present with this little soul, it's going to say bye, bye, I'll just keep on making blood, but I'm not gonna make milk because you're not even here. And lo and behold, milk doesn't come in. And I don't know, I can't get enough milk. And you can if you just, it's just sleep to be, helps you to be relaxed. And then you, you see the unfoldment of this and you never ever forget it. And that 40 days never ever comes again. It's gone. You can't get it back again.

I love that too. Just the 40 days and the invitation and the permission that you give us as women just in sharing that, of taking the time to slow down in such a fast culture that it's a beautiful time for us to just relax and take care of our babies and we don't have to jump up and do everything.

Never have it again. And I would say get up. I mean, when I had water was no cell phones or iPhones or iPads. And I'll get off all that stuff. Yeah, don't take a million photographs. Keep sending photographs to people. Keep interchangeable people. Oh, I got that. No, go inside a cave for 40 days and if you're in a wooded area, go out into nature. Let your baby's first sounds be birds. And the feel of the wind, not the sound of an iPhone or an iPad or a text message. They'll have that so much in their lives. You know, you got to be so conscious of bringing these souls in because we live in such a Tucky Tucky world. And you watch those Tucky Tucky kids, it's scary. So stay in Ojai, sing, play beautiful music, and you'll have to change the world.

Magical.

Well, thank you.

Thank you for sharing your wisdom.

God bless you. Don't email me, but let me or come after 40 days. Come visit us. But be sure to email me after 40 days to make sure I'm in town.

Oh, I will for sure. Thank you so much.

God bless you. And what's your husband's name?

My name. His name is Brian.

Brian. Yeah.

Thank you so much.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Mama Goddess. Sending you lots of love and blessings. If you'd like to connect more, go to mamagoddess.com until next time. Keep rocking it and have an awesome day.