Signs of an Imbalanced Womb & Congested Fertility: Holistic Womb Healing for the Modern Woman w/ Alexandra Durigan

What's up guys, welcome back to the podcast. Wow, am I excited to deliver today's episode for you. This week I am joined by a dear friend and sister of mine, Ali, who I had the pleasure of connecting with in person while on my pilgrimage to Egypt a couple of months ago, although I had previously been admiring her work online for several years. Today's guest, Alexandra Durigan, is a registered nurse holding a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and she spent her early career as a nurse working on a women's specialty care unit. And during this time, Alexandra was a firsthand witness to the skyrocketing rates of pelvic disorders, reproductive surgeries, birth trauma, and the health outcomes that take place when there is a lack of true care for women's bodies. She began to ask the question of how did we get here and set off on a path to discovering more for our womanhood. Ali's passion for women's health led her to the exploration and resurrection of original women's care. She left allopathic care to found her practice, Origin Pelvic Care, which is hands-on ceremonial pelvic care in service to women and the womb, the origin of life. Her work through Origin Pelvic Care serves women in the realms of sexuality and pleasure, reproductive health, and the birth continuum. Ali says that there was a time before the beginning of allopathic medicine where women and their wombs were richly cared for, where the importance of nourishing our bodies as women throughout our lifetime was cellularly understood and upheld by the collective, a time time where we as women and our wombs were held in reverence by the tribe, where it was woven through lineage and culture to honor the sacredness of our feminine physiology and life-giving bodies. There were so many moments during this episode, you guys, where I could feel tears welling up, like I was about to almost cry. And usually when I feel like that, it's because I am in the presence of a very deep truth. I felt like that several times on my trip to Egypt and in other spiritual experiences, of course, that I've had, or on retreats. And when I feel it, it's like a signal that I'm finally remembering or coming home to a truth that my body or soul has known long before my conscious mind was able to recognize it. And trust me when I say there are so many juicy takeaways in this conversation for women of all ages and stages of life. This is not just an episode about fertility or pregnancy or postpartum, but a much larger conversation about the need for more more tender, loving care and reverence for women's bodies, both from our own hands and from the hands of medical practitioners. Ali is here to guide us with practical tips of what to do and not do, signs, symptoms, and what they mean, but also to share some incredible rituals and meditative practices to help you reconnect with your womb space starting today. In this conversation, we are going to talk about how holding on to tension from life and relationships can manifest in our fertility becoming congested or stagnated. What Ali witnessed in hospitals as a nurse that made her want to dedicate her life to educating women on the womb and pelvic care. Why menstrual cramps, brown blood, and lower back pain are all signs of an imbalanced uterus and how to restore that balance. What you should never do while you're on your period. Why are so many women tearing during vaginal labor? And are women being pushed more towards cesarean births or C-sections in hospital settings? Womb healing after losses like miscarriage or abortion, postpartum womb healing rituals and practices for mothers, a guided meditative practice to connect with your womb and pelvis. Is it true that we exchange energy with a partner when we have sex, and how can we protect ourselves? And Ali's candid opinions on hormonal birth control, cold plunging, tampons, and so much more. If you are a woman or a womb holder, you are going to love and enjoy and get so much out of this episode. You can hear hear the passion and wisdom pouring from Allie's voice. I cannot wait for you to tune in. All right, let's get into it. Welcome to the Makeshift Happen podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Daly, entrepreneur, life coach, and your no BS bestie, here to bring you all things mindset, manifestation, and personal development. This podcast is designed to help you expand your mind and uplevel your life. So turn the volume up and roll the windows down if you're coming along for the ride. Let's go make shift happen. Welcome to the show, Allie.

I'm so, so, so excited that you're here.

We, for anyone who doesn't know, Um, Ali and I recently connected. I've been following you. I told you when we met in Egypt, we recently connected in Egypt, but I've been following you online for a while. I found you through Mel's work, and I know that you worked with her pretty intimately and doing some of her womb healing before she was able to get pregnant. And so I think that's how I discovered you, and then I was following you online, and then we ended up on that Egypt trip together, and we just had so much fun. I just remember us like rolling around on the lounge chairs on that upper deck, just like laughing hysterically, just like belly laughs and the funniest like spiritual conversations that went so silly. And yeah, we just had like a really good connection and I just kind of like fell in love with you a little bit. So I knew that I wanted to bring you on the show and share you and your big beautiful heart and all of your wisdom with as many people as possible. So I'm really, really excited that you're here.

Yeah, the crush is mutual and I just admire you so much. Oh my gosh.

Well, I'm excited for everyone to listen to this conversation because Ali is like a well of wisdom when it comes to women's health, pelvic care, womb healing. And I know that there are so many women, as we were just talking about before we hit record, who are waking up in a sense and wanting to care for their bodies in more holistic ways and do things differently, whether it relates to pregnancy or birth or just menstruation, or, you know, being a womb holder, being someone who walks through the world with a womb because they are these creative centers. And there's so much magic in womanhood itself. And so I'm really, really excited to get into the work that you do, but I'd love to give some context for everyone just kind of about like what your background is and maybe what some of the core experiences were in your life that really made you passionate about women's pelvic care and spreading and sharing womb wisdom. Like, what was it that happened for you in your life that made this so core to your mission?

Uh, thanks for starting there, babe. Yeah, my journey— I just think like so many of our journeys began back when I was a little girl and I was coming into my menstruating years. Um, I got my first menstrual cycle way back when I was 10 years old, which was like very early at the time. And I really quickly began to have this experience that my womanly body didn't feel safe. And that kind of took me on this trajectory that ended up in an eating disorder. Um, I ended up going into in-person treatment when I was senior in high school. And it was there in in-person treatment that I had this really wild moment at like 3 AM crying on the floor where I felt this light in my body and it was like, choose me. At the time I didn't know what it was. Today I would say that was my womb calling me home. So I really quickly went on this healing journey. Um, I ended up going to college. I had to be able to start healing my eating disorder to be permissioned to go to college. Um, and I just started falling in love with this idea of like, where are women being cared for and how can women be cared for? And how do we as women get to feel safe in our bodies? And like, what else is possible? And I had lost my menstrual cycle, um, and all these other things. And, and so when I went to college, I was deciding between liberal arts and journalism and then nursing. And I grew up in— which now I get to write all the time, which I love— but I grew up in Rochester, Minnesota, which is where the nation's number one hospital is. And so choosing nursing was a really celebrated next step, as well as when I was in in-person treatment, there was the most beautiful night nurse who was a woman, and the way that she took care of me, like, changed something in me. So I went to nursing ready to like love women, ready to know how women can be cared for, like ready to be a part of that. Um, when I graduated, I moved out to Colorado and I worked on a women's specialty unit. And really what that meant was that we cared for women in the realms of labor and delivery and postpartum. But then the really main place that women were being cared for on that unit was reproductive surgeries. And as I was on my own healing journey at this point, I felt like I was looking out out at the world and at this unit and at these women with a whole other lens of perspective. And I really started to ask questions of like, why is there a conveyor belt of reproductive surgeries every day? Like, how did we get here? Um, why when a woman wants to birth naturally do we take that as a surprise and does it get questioned? And why are 90-plus percent of women having these tears, and why are we just sending them home, and what is their aftercare? And I just, I wanted to know more. Um, I really learned that allopathy couldn't answer those questions. Allopathy is there to take life-saving measures. Um, allopathy is not there to deeply tend the wholeness of a woman and ensure that she's richly connected to the beauty of her sexuality. And a long time ago, allopathy severed sexual health from whole health. So these are just patterns that I began to pick up on that I really wanted to be a part of changing. And so in all those questions and all that inquiry and all the healing of my own body and feeling my sexuality is sacred for the first time, as feeling my womb as this portal of creation and wanting other women to be revered in their life-giving bodies, um, and restoring my own menstrual cycle and just starting to learn that there's other possibilities, I really began began to seek for even more, and I learned about womb care and yoni massage, and like, wow, women can be taken care of, and let's take care of the bodies of women. Um, once I got into the world of hands-on work, I was enthralled, and hands-on womb care and pelvic care and whole woman care and these ancient rituals and all of these original women's keeping practices I just was infinitely inspired. And yeah, you know, there used to be a time before the birth of allopathy that women in their wombs were richly cared for throughout the wholeness of womanhood, where it was held in reverence and well understood by the people that to care for the women in their wombs is to care for the world, and that this is where humanity continues. Like, there was reverence for women's bodies. And so I'm really just here today to support the continued resurrection and remembrance of that. And I just think that, you know, what inspires me and keeps me going is the beauty of this work, is the transformation that happens when women with chronic pelvic pain or chronic menstrual cycle, just like, you know, cramps or dark blood, like all these things that we've normalized, when these women begin to experience another potential for their bodies, when their wombs come back into center, where a woman who's had failed IVF conceives naturally, like all these things. A woman who had a C-section gets a VBAC, and it's just like, my goodness, that, that's what inspires me, and that's why I keep going.

And, um, yeah, so, so yeah, so yeah, this is your mission, this is your life's work. You're so in it, you're so passionate about it, and That's so felt through just the way that you talk about it. I love it so much. And there's so much that I'm really excited to learn from you in this conversation too, and, and go deeper into. And I had written down, you know, some of the things that you mentioned in terms of vaginal tears in birth.

Mm-hmm.

And you know, even this idea that, uh, women are being pushed more towards cesarean births or that C-sections are becoming more, um, common for whatever reason. Um, the fact that there is this multibillion-dollar industry dedicated to removing women's wombs. So much of that that you've hinted at, that is kind of this difference between what you said of— we can call it medical care or life-saving care versus like the whole woman care, which is a little bit more holistic. And there's a place for both things. But I just love to hear you speak to some of these kind of disconnected practices that are happening in today's life-saving medical care that oftentimes are suboptimal for women and in some cases directly harmful to them.

Totally.

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Yeah, you know, I think whenever I get going on this topic, it's like so many things want to come through at the same time. It's like, oh, we could talk about sexual health, or, oh, we could talk about reproductive health, or Oh, we could talk about, you know, the prenatal experience or the birth experience or the postpartum experience. So I'd love to like let us sink in just around birth for a moment and kind of where you just hinted into. There's virtually no prenatal care, right? In the lens of allopathy, a woman would conceive and she would have some checkups and then she would arrive at birth. The thing is, is that to some degree That's dangerous. Why? Because we as women in today's societal, cultural, medical dynamics are so out of our bodies at large, meaning that we've never received womb care, meaning that the uterine ligaments have never been balanced or tended, meaning that our cervix has never received deep healing touch and may not actually be in center, meaning that we can carry so many emotions in the tissues, muscles, fascia, and terrain of our vaginal canal or vulvas. And so, so many women are entering birth out of relationship to the birthing gateways. That is by— that is not by fault of any woman. It's the reality of a system that has lost womb lineage. And so where I get so excited is like What happens when women start receiving whole pelvic womb care? What happens when the birthing gateways are balanced? When a woman has an opportunity to deeply connect to these parts of her body, even the opportunity to process grief that has been so chronically held in her internal pelvis, where unconsciously she's been tensing those muscles. And what happens when those muscles are plump and dynamic come time for birth, what do our birthing outcomes get to be? And when the vaginal opening feels soft and safe, you know, what do the birthing outcomes get to be? I, I believe in a world where women don't have to tear. I believe in a world where when women birth, they know where baby is in their body as they descend through womb, through cervix, through yoni, through vaginal opening, and into their mother's arms. You know, I believe in a world where women birth in bodies that are so deeply taken care of, that it serves and supports the health of their selves and their emergence into motherhood, and the health of their child's birth. So that gets to be so beautiful. So, you know, the inquiry of, of why are birthing outcomes what they are, the way that I really feel like I can answer that is because women aren't being cared for before pregnancy and conception and throughout pregnancy and into, you know, their birthing ceremony. Um, and, and then I get excited of what gets to happen when that starts to take place again. Um, other things might be, you know, getting your, your, your uterus removed. That's a hysterectomy. And at this point in allopathy, it's not even recognized that the womb belongs in center. Um, and I, and I say that from the frame of reference that women will receive an ultrasound or they're going to the gynecologist or however they'll, they'll visit their doctor and they'll be told, oh, you have a retroverted uterus, or, oh, your uterus is to the right, um, or, oh, your uterus is anteverted. And, and then we just kind of go home. And that happened to me, and, and that's happened to so many women who've shared their stories with me. And of course, the first thing that we do is we go to Google and we Google, what the heck is a retroverted uterus? And then it says it's a uterus that's tilted backwards, um, and that it correlates to infertility. I was going to a nursing school, a college, um, that was a part of the nation's number one hospital, the Mayo Clinic, and I asked my teacher, what does a retroverted uterus mean? And she also just, you know, kind of dismissed it. Oh, it doesn't matter, don't worry. The thing is, is that it does matter. Um, our womb being in center matters. We need to be self-centered women. Um, for people who might be on video, like, if my body is the womb and my arms are uterine ligaments, you know, if the womb is tilted to the left, now she's pressing up against the left ovary The left fallopian tube is congested. The ligaments on the left side are congested. They are kind of collapsed. And then the ligaments on the right side are strained. You know, they're kind of like the reins of the horse, really tight and pulled and trying to keep the womb, you know, filled to the best that they can. And this interrupts blood flow. This interrupts our hormonal communicative pathways to our hypothalamus and our pituitary gland. Um, and over time, that chronic tension can create disease. So we have to really consider that some of these reproductive surgeries that are happening to such a large degree, again, can really be the result, um, and the consequence of women not being taken care of. Um, and, you know, we could get into so many other things here around, like, internal pain vaginismus, sexual pain. But for me, it really comes down to how can we hold our women, how can we nourish them. Um, most women who do find my work say something like, I didn't know this care was possible, I didn't know this existed. And then after receiving this care, um, it's one of the most common remarks of, I wish every woman could know Um, so it really lends itself to, yeah, like I said before, sexual health, reproductive health, and the birth continuum.

I'm curious, and I'm sure so many people listening are also curious, like, what are some of the causes of a uterus or a womb that is out of alignment or that is strained or that's, you know, backwards or leaning to the left or whatever? Like, what is that? Just something that happens in life? Because it sounds a lot like what happens, you know, if you go to a chiropractor and you get an adjustment. A lot of the pain that you can have in your back is from a similar thing. It's like when the spine is out of alignment, there's certain ligaments or muscles on one side that's pulling to try to get it back into alignment, and that creates the tension. And that happens through, you know, daily life, our habits, working out, sleeping wrong. So are there any things that are the most common reasons for this misalignment in— or the tension that is created in our womb space?

Totally. So many things. Um, I think the chiropractic example was like really great because it helps us grasp like familiarity, you know, like ideas that we're familiar with. So I think that was awesome, Sam. Um, yeah, so, so many things. One, we should never be running or doing impact activities while bleeding. Um, I know that I was a lacrosse player and a hockey player in high school, and coming into my menstruating years and I was so active. I did so many jumps and knocking other girls over on the ice rink. And like, you know, we're in these high-impact environments. You know, I wonder what it would be like to have menstrual literacy and to integrate that from day one for girls and, you know, for young emerging women. One of the things that most people don't understand is that the womb is on average around 4 ounces. When we bleed, it can double, so now it's 8 ounces. And so now all those ligaments that hold the womb in place are holding something that's twice as large, right? So high-impact activities during our bleed is an stress on our body and can really lead to a womb coming out of place. When we do those things over and over, it becomes chronic and we have an adapted pattern in our pelvis. Another thing is the way that we sit. You know, we sit really straight. In yoga, we're told to tuck our tailbone. None of that is made for the physiology of a woman. We're meant to be wide hips our hips are meant to be so wide, you know, we're just like meant to have that like juicy posture, our sacrum soft and taking up space, but we don't. We tuck and we hide and we become linear in our form, and that impacts the balance of our center. Other things like tailbone falls— if we fall on our sacrum or a tailbone, and that can really impact the position of the womb, you know, and, and then daily life, but then also the form that we take on energetically and emotionally throughout our womanhood, you know. If, if there is a part of our body that we've been made to feel unsafe in, like our womb, like our menstruating, bleeding center, our sexual center, we're going to have a maladapted pattern of kind of drawing up and out. Maybe we move towards our shoulders, maybe our hips take a different posture. Our center is impacted by the emotional formation that we take on, and postures form. So there's so many things, you know, and And I think about that, like, even in regards to our belly and, and sucking in. When we're sucking in our belly, we're totally suffocating our womb. And how entrained from such an early age have we been around that? So, you know, I think little tips and tricks like knowing, wow, um, running and box jumping and high-impact activities on my bleed. Maybe I cannot do that anymore. That would be really great to let my body rest. Um, what would it be like for young girls to be more menstrually literate? Um, and then what is the posture that I'm allowing my feminine form to take? And is it organic, or is it tucked in, sucked in, and adapted? And do I feel like I can safely inhabit the width of my center, or am I somehow like pulling up and out and disconnecting from that place? And how might, you know, the culmination of those things impact the balance of my womb? You know, just like any part of our body, our womb deserves to be cared for. Just like any part of our body, our pelvis needs love and attention. And when we get that, we get to live a life of nourishment.

So good. I'm sure there's women that are really curious and wondering now, how might I know if I'm out of center? I'm sure, you know, if like most of us probably are, I would venture to guess, because we live in this way that is not attuned to this knowledge or, you know, living in this way. But I know that you say the body wants to be well and I'd love to take a look at some of these common symptoms that might be an indication that something is off balance, but it's really just, you know, the womb signaling for support so that we can be more deeply well.

I feel like some really common things, like common to the point of cultural norm, common to the point where it's become accepted as it just is what it is, would be menstrual cramps. Most women experience menstrual cramps. Menstrual cramps feed into our resentment over our womb. However, menstrual cramps are the voice of our womb calling out, saying, hey, I really need love. Hey, you deserve to be really cared for in your center. Hey, we're a little out of balance. Um, why, why do menstrual cramps correlate to a womb that's out of center? If you think of like a straight pipe or a straight channel or a straight river, everything gets to flow with so much ease, right? Now, if you put a big bend in that or a big kink in that, all of a sudden the womb has to work so much harder, and some of those uterine ligaments are really tense trying to hold the womb in her imbalanced position. And instead of being able to just let go like an easeful river, she's having to work really Victoria Ward to release the endometrium. Um, so menstrual cramps are a pretty big signifier. Also deep penetrative pain. What I mean by that is that cervix is the mouth of womb, and cervix can communicate with us so beautifully about the position of our womb. And most times when a woman has deep penetrative pain and cervix is tight and It's also correlating to a uterus that is out of center as well. So uterine body, mouth of uterine body is cervix. Cervix is going to communicate the state of the womb to a really large degree. Um, other things are dark brown blood clots or just general pelvic tension. We also can notice low back pain. Pain. Low back pain can often be from the utero-sacral ligament really pulling around sacrum. Um, and, and so all these things, you know, I think that we've accepted as normal parts of menstruation, normal parts of womanhood, they're actually the languaging of our womb for us to be really cared for.

Hey, don't forget that every month we are picking a Listener of the Month to win $50 in cash just for showing love to the show. All you have to do is leave an epic review of the podcast on Apple Podcasts, screenshot the review before you hit submit, and DM that screenshot to us on Instagram @makeshifthappenpodcast. And that's it. I want to thank you for being such a loyal listener and show my appreciation by putting a little extra cash in your pocket. I know it's super easy not to do it, but every single rating and review seriously helps the show rank higher and reach new people, so we appreciate them more than you know. We'll announce the next winner at the end of the month and slide into your DMs comes if it's you. So keep an eye out and good luck. Love you guys and thanks for supporting Makeshift Happen. Ah, well, I know there's a lot of people, myself included, thinking, okay, I should do something about that. Yeah, should really do something about that. So I know I would love to come and have you— we talked about this in Egypt— to have you do hands-on womb care for me at some point. Um, but we also know that that's maybe not totally accessible as like a widespread solution for so many people. So what are some of the things that, you know, in addition to the things that we can stop doing that you mentioned before in terms of the things that might be continuing to create imbalance or harm to the womb, is there anything else that we can really do to care for ourselves or to help nourish our womb space with kind of where we are and what we have?

Totally. I believe that every woman should know how to bring her hands to her center, how to bring her hands to her womb. So one, getting a really beautiful organic oil and spending time with your womb. And the next question might be, well, where, where is my womb? Um, our womb is about 2 to 3 fingers above our pubic bone and below our belly button. So she's just arching right above our pubic bone. When we massage right above our pubic bone and in that low belly terrain between our hips, we're really in womb territory. We're also in ovarian territory. Um, so really simply, just to gentle blood flow and to allow the lymph to flow, the lymph to clear, the lymph to take all those old residues and toxins away from the pelvis space and really imbue the pelvic body with beauty, um, and, and to support our own sense of connection to our center, we can do really beautiful circles just all along that space, like slow and warm and caring. And, you know, I think women are constantly amazed at what it can be like and how good it can feel when we finally bring our hands back to our center. Um, I always like to talk about like the— like where touch can be medicine. Um, I don't think it's appropriate to say that touch is only ever medicine, and I think we can all just kind of like understand what I mean by but touch can be some of the greatest medicine that we have available to us. And so the quality of touch matters. When we bring our hands to our tissues, we're communicating directly with our system, with ourselves, with our center, and with our nervous system. And so touch that is really quick and fast and kind of absent-minded, like, "Oh, I'm just gonna quick slap this lotion on after the shower," that's gonna feel one way. And then touch that is like so intentional, touch that just like sinks in and lands and cradles and cherishes, has so many profound healing effects on our body, on our sense of safety within our sense of self and connection. Um, so just that warm, like ultra caring circling around our low belly to really start feeling into that. Um, I also really love to offer like an internal proprioceptive relationship to feeling our womb and our center, because sometimes our womb can be like this etheric thing. You know, a lot of people are like, follow your womb wisdom, and it's like, well, I don't really know like, like where, where is that, right? So I love directing our internal awareness through relationship to our bones, specifically the pelvic bony matrix. Um, and when we can kind of like close our eyes and let ourselves breathe down towards our root, just kind of like walking our awareness down, and we can notice our left hip We can kind of have a breath there, and we can walk our presence to the back of our pelvic body and notice our sacrum. And then we can go to the right side and notice our right hip. And then we can come all the way to the front and notice our pubic bone. And in this noticing of our bones, all of a sudden we're relating to this nest that cradles us fully and completely. And when we feel these bones cradling us, we can just kind of explore how might that next exhale feel if I really let my bones hold me, if maybe my tissues or muscles that have been doing the holding get to let go even just a fiber more. And from that place, we can start to breathe between our hips, so between the left and right hips, and then front to back between our pubic bone and our sacrum. And now we're breathing into our center. And this is where our womb is. And then we can say hello. We can say hello to our very own womb. And I think that's powerful because if we can learn to let our hips hold us and to sense into our center a little more, that's going to have a lot of magic, a lot of medicine for us as women. And then we get to notice, oh, what feels like really safe and coherent to my center? What makes me like tighten up and guard my center? You know, where, where do I feel nourished? Where do I feel stressed? It just starts to become this really grand opening of relating and taking care of our womb, you know. So I think generally just, just feeling our center, letting ourselves feel our center, maybe in the morning or midday, and then bringing our hands to our womb. Um, and, and for any woman who's like, I want to know so much more and I want my hands to know how to touch and tend my body, that's really the space of my membership and And every month we have a live call and we do beautiful self-touch practices and body literacy. And, um, yeah, but, but we can all bring our hands to our center like today.

That was so beautiful. I feel like I got lost in that little meditative moment of connecting with the womb space. I love that. I love that, you know, of course there's the physical elements, but but then there has to be this, you know, deeper kind of like spiritual mindfulness element as well of what we can do to take care of ourselves more deeply. So I love that. I'm curious to know, like in terms of just really like specific things like cold plunge, tampons, like is there anything like that where you're like—

Totally.

Where you're like good or like not so good for, holistic, whole woman care when we're trying to heal the womb space.

Totally. I really don't recommend tampons. I just don't. And we can all make them.

I feel like I'm rejecting them. I feel like I'm rejecting them more and more. Like, I try not to wear them, but sometimes I'm like, okay, just with what I want to wear, it's inevitable. This is what works. But it's like I'm feeling so much more resistance to them. I keep feeling like every time I put one in, I'm like almost getting like a yeast infection from it. Like I'm— my body is like, no, yeah, I don't want to.

Sam, totally, babe. I mean, you know, I think the more, the more that like we give our body a chance to speak and pay attention, it's like we're gonna be shown, we're gonna have a felt sense of knowing when our body says, no thank you, this actually isn't for me. That's a really big deal as women to notice and listen and And I agree, same, same. Like, once I started to play with the inquiry of tampons, I was like, oh shit, my body really doesn't want tampons. But it's all that I knew was possible, and I never questioned it before. Um, what— why do I not believe in tampons physiologically is because our womb and our cervix and our whole vaginal canal are working together in a symphony to orchestrate the letting go of the endometrium of that cycle. When our wombs are imbalanced, we're already having a hard enough time letting go, and something like a plug, like a tampon, is going to give a really negative feedback loop to these tissues juice and into our womb, into our cervix, into our yoni, again, that are trying to let go. I feel like most women haven't actually had the experience of what it is to truly bleed. And what I mean by that is that whether we have a tampon in or a menstrual cup, or we have a chronic holding pattern, or we're kind of like always kind of holding it in because we don't want it to like get on our pants or drip down our leg or however, you know, like, we're not getting the opportunity to truly bleed. Um, that alone has impact over time. If the endometrium can't fully release, we're gonna potentially see things like difficulty conceiving because there's not a clear, fresh, regenerated endometrial lining that next cycle. Uh, so it's, it's a really big deal to bleed. It's a really big deal to feel what it is to let go. And I think this kind of gets me into like all the wisdom of our womb. Our womb wants us to know that it's okay to let go. Our womb wants us to know that we're held even when we're not holding. Our womb wants us to know that cycles can end, and after endings, new life becomes. Our womb wants us to know that when death or change or endings arrive, we're so okay and we have everything that we need to make that next regenerative shift and emergence for ourselves as women. And it's like when we get to really bleed, we get to be a part of that wisdom that our body is speaking. So yeah, long story short, I don't really believe in tampons. So what do we do? How do I bleed then? Um, there's so many epic women on Instagram who are organically dyeing cotton undies and making like incredible menstrual, uh, supplies, including, um, menstrual underwear where you can free bleed, where you can just have that experience of bleeding into an organic cloth when you really get to let go. The other thing that's so important about that is that that allows us to actually track and trace our blood. So we get to actually know, like, is my blood coming out dark brown, which is telling me about some stagnancy and congestion, or is it bright red, or is it light pink, which is actually maybe telling me about some nutritional deficiency? So there's again so much wisdom system in our blood. Um, and so you said tampon, Sam, and then what else did you say? Cold plunges. Yeah, I mean, let's just like all let our bodies feel what it feels like to be in a cold plunge. Every single part of me is contracting. Um, so, so when would that be like least ideal for our feminine physiology? Would be right before our bleed during our bleed. Um, you know, I, I think that everything can really be— um, how do I want to say— we— everything can be discerned through our own bodies, and all women deserve to discern what's right for them. And physiologically, it's a bit unideal, less ideal to be cold plunging before I bleed, and especially during our bleed. I mean, it just really goes against the needs of, of what our womb needs, what our hormonal cascade is asking for, what the health of our feminine physiology wants during that time, which is warmth, which is deep warmth and, and rest and circulation, um, and like a cozy blanket and a hot cup of tea and You know, a cold plunge is like the total other spectrum of that. So if you're a cold plunge fanatic, maybe explore like a sauna right before your bleed and, you know, some slow walks during your bleed and maybe a cold plunge at ovulation. I think those things are important to consider. And whenever, whenever the male body, whenever a man is, is leading an initiative, You know, I think it's important for us to inquire, how might that differ for my body as a woman? How might that need to be adjusted for my physiology? And, you know, at this point in my life, and I say this with so much deep care, but we get really excited when we see women backing things. We get really excited when we see women in leadership and women at the front front. And then my question to follow up with that is always, is this woman deeply connected to her womb? Is this woman deeply nourished? Is this woman living according to her rhythms? I ask those things because those things are of value to me and my sense of health and wellness. Um, and if that's a no, then I'll do my own research and really inquire. But when, when women are leading and talking about cyclicality and their feminine physiology and they have that awareness and they're leading these other modalities with that, I get really excited because I'm like, oh, we get to be nourished here, we get to be really taken care of here. So, you know, I, I say that because I think it's important for us again to have that discernment of, is this going to run me into an even greater stress cycle? Because stress cycles are going to produce cortisol that's going to impact our fertility, our sexuality, or our sense of juiciness and nourishment. And health as women? Or is this like really deeply replenishing me? Is this tending me in a way that maybe I really need right now? And what is the interface of that? And, and, you know, we can discern from that place.

Yeah, so good. So, so important. I think that discernment is key in, you know, so many areas of life, but especially, you know, as we continue in this evolution of, of feminism and seeing, you know, how women are stepping into so many more roles that were traditionally led or only for men. It's, it's beautiful, it's empowering, it's amazing. And I think there also has to be this, this recognition of the fact that, um, physiologically men and women are not the same, right? So we should have equal rights in world, but our bodies are not actually the same and our, our brains don't work the same. We don't have the same types of needs. Our cycles are not the same. And for whatever reason that it can be sometimes a controversial thing to bring to the forefront of the conversation of like, just remember, just because a man does it doesn't mean that, you know, you can do it. I mean, maybe you can, but is that what's best for you? Right. And so it's that discernment that you're speaking of, of does this feel true for me? Does this feel like it's honoring for me? Does this feel like it's nourishing for me. And I think, you know, in our effort to rise, as we, as we should, right? But in our effort to rise, there has been a large disregard for our deeper well-being as women and for recognizing some of those physiological differences and what is or isn't best for us on a collective level and also on a personal level. So I think that's a really important thing to bring up, and I know that a lot of people don't want to talk about it, but I think it's very, very real about it.

Yeah, yeah, it's real.

So real. So I wanna, I wanna make sure we answer some of these audience questions because, yeah, um, I asked our community if they wanted to learn anything from you or what their biggest questions would be. So I want to kind of dive in. I have some of them here. One of the first questions was about if it's true that we exchange energy with sexual partners, and if there is a way to protect ourselves or our wombs from this energetic exchange. I've even heard that the, the DNA of a man stays in your body for a certain amount of time after a sexual exchange. Let's talk about that.

I, I've never read the research on that, but yeah, we're exchanging mucosa, we're exchanging skin cells, we're we're literally exchanging parts of ourselves. And not just parts of ourselves, but the most intimate spaces. I would say absolutely you're exchanging energy with someone when they enter your body. And I think when we just sit with that, when a man enters your body, he is inside of you. So that's a really grand thing. That's a really sacred thing. Um, we all get to make our own sexual choices, and it's my prayer that women can be so self-centered. And when I say that, I mean inhabiting their center, because I think that's a really wounded thing that told early on is don't be self-centered, right? As in, don't take care of yourself. It's quite a confusing, uh, thing for us to be told. But to be so self-centered, to be so in our yoni, so in our vulva, that when we go to exchange, when we go to make love, when we go to allow a person outside of ourselves to cross the threshold of our body body and come into our internal terrain, that our discernment can feel that dripping true coherent yes or the no. That's a really big deal to me, to let someone come into your internal space. I mean, Sam, we're exchanging energy right now, you know, and you're in Florida and I'm in Boulder, Colorado, Like, we are so intimately interconnected, so energetic as beings. That really is the foundation of part of our creation and our physiology and anatomy of a whole is the energy anatomy of our bodies and of all of creation. So, you know, when we come into union in that way, coming inside of us creates a unionship. There's absolutely an exchange. So how How do we protect, from, from my perspective, ourselves as women, is, is again that discernment of being self-centered, of cultivating a deep, sensuous, belonging, care-filled relationship to our yoni and to our vulva that supports our capacity to discern if we really want to allow this person to come into our innermost terrain or not. I work with women a lot in the realms of sexuality and sexual trauma, sexual pain, you know, anorgasmia. And that's one of the biggest, I think, reclamations is that we as women can sense ourselves enough that our body becomes the compass to be able to say yes or to be able to say no. I think that's our biggest boundary, right? That's, that's, that's the plane of discernment for me.

Yeah, so good. And, you know, for anyone who maybe has had encounters where they weren't exercising or didn't feel connected to that discernment or to that, like, deep knowing of their body and being able to feel that intuitive yes or no, I think a lot of the things that you shared earlier of just, you know, the connection with the womb, the massage, the, you know, the visualization the, uh, talking to your womb space, like all of that might be a helpful way to feel as though you are clearing anything that maybe crossed the threshold of that internal terrain that you did not want. But now you have more perspective to be able to say like, okay, I, I understand that now and I forgive myself and, um, I'm here to take care of myself now.

Totally. Oh, thank you for bringing that up, Sam. And And, you know, I think one of the things that I just would like want all women to know is that you are never not belonging to your body and you are never not whole. Like, actually, you are always whole and you are always belonging. And that awareness, that experience, that, you know, imprint we could call it, gets to be the beacon of you claiming your body and womanhood so deeply and of coming into the most exquisite exquisite relationship with your tissues and self. And just to like offer everyone a little ritual that I find to be so powerful, um, you know, for just that, is to, you know, take the time to let your own fingers rest at your vaginal opening, have plenty of oil, and just sit there and breathe. And feel that threshold of your body and know that maybe from that moment forward you get to be the authority. You get to decide. It is your body. And when we rest there with our hands, with our finger at our vaginal opening, and we really wait and we really listen without any pressure to push past but just with reverence and respect. That is so transformative and so healing for our body to feel that waiting, that care. And then in time, we can get to learn what our true yes feels like, because when the yoni is a true yes, you will actually call and welcome— the tissues will open and welcome our fingers or whatever it it is into her, into us. And so when we can get familiar with that subtlety, that is so powerful.

So good. I love that. Wow, that'll be a powerful practice for all of us to try. Yeah. Okay, we had a couple of questions about womb healing specifically after loss, be it, um, miscarriage or abortion. So if there's any advice that you can give for women that have experienced this, you know, deep, profound sense of loss or grief from whatever it may be in their womb space, is there anything in particular they can do to support themselves and heal physically, energetically, spiritually?

Totally. Oh, it's one of my greatest passions in life to dream with my sisters into rituals that can support us in staying in our center. In really, you know, I think particularly just to lean into and give care to the experience of a miscarriage. The pattern that I, that I witness most in the women that I work with is that there becomes this fear of inhabiting our center. Center, that all of a sudden there becomes this mistrust, um, that sometimes women can feel like they— their center isn't capable of holding life. And so really, we want to give so much listening to, to what that is. And for every woman, that's going to be a little bit different. I love the ritual for miscarriages in general of planting a flower for that spirit baby. Um, it's something that you get to water, it's something you get to watch grow, it's something that holds the essence and energy of life itself. Any loss of the womb I consider to be a postpartum. So no matter how early or how late it was, any loss of the womb, we are now in a postpartum time. And what does that mean? That means that we need things like rest and warmth and deep tending. It means that our womb needs care and that we as a woman need and deserve care. Now, some women might have had a loss a year ago or 5 years ago and not quite felt like they ever really got to return to their center. So I really feel like you can enter conscious awareness of that postpartum time wherever you are. And what does that really look like? Well, traditionally throughout many indigenous cultures, the postpartum period is 40 days. So I love to sit with women and look at, okay, starting today for the next 40 days, we're going to take care of you like it's a postpartum time. When we have that container that holds us, loss, we get to actually finally deeply and truly be with the emotions. And that might look like really grieving the loss. That might look like a woman returning her hands over her womb space for the first time in a long time. That might look like finally having an exhale through the pelvic body and into our hips. I really, really, really think it's so important to have some sort of womb massage, womb touch, so that you can come back into relationship to your center again. And know that even in the loss, like, your womb wants to cradle you. Your womb had that loss with you. Your womb is your home. Your womb is where you get to rest into. Your womb is there for you. And so anything that supports a woman in feeling in relationship to her womb, I just say like, let's do that. And for so many women, a missing piece is warm, caring touch that actually helps them viscerally and somatically land back into their center and feel cared for in that direct place, right? Because until that, it's like the place that experience, the lost, goes untouched. Touched, and we want it to be so touched and so held. So yeah, the womb massage, um, you can place honey over your womb and apply rose petals and just breathe love from your heart all the way down. So many little ways, so many little rituals, but I think those are, those are some.

Yeah, beautiful, beautiful. I would imagine that, you know, the, the postpartum care and the 40 days is equally as important even after a successful birth. Is that correct, that you would still take the 40 days to really nourish and nurture yourself and reconnect to your center and continue the womb massage and the warm intentional touch? And all of that is relevant after, after a successful birth as well?

Yes, absolutely. Um, for full-term births or, or births to our living beautiful children. We need postpartum womb and pelvic care. Um, and, and let's just like walk ourselves through that, you know. The uterus goes from 4 ounces, this like sweet little space that's so big and powerful, um, to holding the whole body and life of your baby. So all the uterine ligaments, the broad ligaments on the side, the round ligaments around the front, the utero-sacral on the back, the cervical around cervix— like, we went from this huge, full, expanded expression to now empty. That's a huge shift, a huge shift. And the womb now has to come down in size, and the ligaments have to now readjust. Adjust and come back and take a new form and a new shape. And so when women don't receive whole pelvic care postpartum, sometimes the womb can settle into an imbalanced place. If there was any tearing and that tissue turns to scar tissue, that can then over time become deeply painful, as well as just a sense of like recentering returning into yourself after 9 months of having the living, breathing, pulsing life of your child in your center. And now your body is yours again, just you, but you've transformed into mother body. And whether it's your first baby or your 7th baby, your body is transformed. It has mingled with the life of your child. Their imprints are forever etched into you, and now it's you again. So we're always recohering and re-meeting the women that we are as we evolve through every single birth and every single cycle. And, you know, I really witness how postpartum womb and pelvic tending allows women to have more intimate connections with themselves. Their hormones balance more quickly, their menstrual cycle returns more quickly and easily. They have deeper connection to their babies because they feel connected to their own bodies, and they have deeper intimacy with their partners. So I really see postpartum body tending as something that not just tends the woman who's evolved as woman and mother and, and lover and wife and all the things, um, but that also really tends the geometry of the family.

Okay, someone had asked about, uh, complex cysts on the ovary and if it's possible to heal or move through that without birth control. That was their specific question, if birth control was the only answer or if there were other ways. I think I read a post once about you having your own personal experience with an ovarian cyst.

Is Correct. I had a cervical cyst.

Oh, okay, it was a cervical cyst. Okay, interesting. Um, regardless, from your knowledge and experience, are there ways that we can support in the healing of cysts that don't involve birth control?

Totally. Um, yeah, I mean, in this— this is my perspective, um, is that birth control is suppressing the cause. It's just kind of band-aiding over it. Um, and, and maybe suppressing isn't even the right term because actually what I really observe happens is that birth control suppresses our own hormonal orchestration. It suppresses our capacity to sense and feel ourselves. It stresses our liver out to a huge um, and our liver is in charge of the maintenance of the whole health and clarity of our body. And so cysts really are chronic congestion. There's some sort of tension happening that's not allowing the ovary to fully release, to fully express, um, and, and these cysts are developing from some quality of a stress response. That stress response can be physical, hormonal, nutritional, emotional, and it's usually all of the things. Um, and so what can happen is with hormonal birth control, sometimes that root cause is actually really just simmering underneath. We're just noticing it less. So it's like we just put this like huge film over that's making it more and more difficult to, like, sense in and really see what's happening. Um, so ovarian cysts— first, let's talk about the ovaries. The ovaries are these beautiful, beautiful oceans. They're these beautiful, intelligent oceanic bodies, and they're nestled into the ovarian fossa of the internal pelvis. And so they have this, like, little cave that was, like, carved out by the hands of creation just for them. And in their little cave, they're woven into the muscles and fascia of the pelvic body. So when the internal pelvic body is really, really chronically tense or holding and it's tight, there's going to be less blood flow, which is imperative for all organ function, including the ovaries. Um, there's going to be less lymphatic clearing, meaning that a really toxic environment is going to start to take place because things aren't getting cleared out. And now we have the beautiful oceanic ovaries that are tucked in their little ovarian fossa, but the ovarian fossa has now become so stressed, so it's impacting the health of the ovaries, the function of the ovaries, and the lymph is sticking around, so they're getting really kind of icky. Um, those things are so important generally for ovarian health, um, and And then when there's congestion in the ovaries, when there's stress in the ovaries, we're also now having an impact on hormonal balance and the orchestration that facilitates the whole development of the follicle, including the release and the letting go and the decomposition. So all these little things along the way are being inhibited. So what can we do? We can deeply come into relationship with our ovaries. This, we can do little circling around them with a really nice oil and really loving touch to start to move healing blood in for cellular repair and deep ovarian function and moving the lymph out to create a space of clarity. We have to really pay attention to the overall stress within our lives and within our bodies. So we want food that nourishes us, that nourishes our nervous system, that makes us feel provided for. And in that providing, we also have better metabolic function. And then we want to pay attention to like what downregulates us, what helps us feel relaxed. Where are we overriding ourselves as women, overriding our cycles, um, overriding our physiology? Because the body can't heal in stressed state, I find that the ovaries are energetically that which is the pinnacle of procreation, right? Because it is the ovaries that release the eggs of life. The ovaries are procreative. Every cycle they move in a way that wants to be procreative. So when our ovaries are stressed and having things like chronic cysts, well, that procreative capacity is being inhibited. And we want to re-resonate with what is procreative, and that will help us in our healing journey. So, um, this is not medical advice. I will just like also preface that because that's important. Um, and getting off birth control is going to give the body the best shot to truly heal the root cause for so many reasons, including the liver, including the deep need for a whole hormonal cascade, including the capacity to sense and feel, and then including the nourishment and downregulating the stress response that's taking place. Pelvic tending, pelvic bodywork, pelvic care, it can all really help. Um, so yeah, I think that's, that's some good information.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the holistic addition to anything that, you know, might require medical prevention, obviously, right? And, and we have those services there for when we need them, um, but it's nice to have these other practices that are available to us that we can start to lean into to support in the journey towards more deeply healing. Okay, our last question from the audience was about the connection between the womb and creativity, or even potentially like this idea of the womb being connected to our ability to manifest or align with miracles. Someone also asked if the womb is in any way connected to money. So I don't know, this is just like a big, you know, kind of spiritually creative question, but energetically, do you feel that there is a connectedness between the womb and our creativity or our ability to attract, manifest, align with miracles?

Absolutely. You know, the womb is the creative portal to life. How I really speak to the womb in this regard is that the womb will gestate whatever is inside. So the womb is the grand gestator. She's the grand creator and birther from the perspective of gestation. So when we have long-held trauma in our womb, that might be gestated, that might be perpetuated. When we are not inhabiting ourselves as women in our own womb, then whatever is held in our center will be gestated. When we bring ourselves as women back into our center and become again self-centered women, we will be gestated into the truth of who we are. When we bring our dreams and desires, our hopes and our prayers into the altar of our womb, they will be gestated. So yes, I, I see the womb as this creative portal, but I really feel like it's more than that. It's that whatever is held within a woman's womb will be gestated, um, and I always say that the womb will hold for us, consciously or unconsciously, anything that we ask her too. It's my prayer that we come back to our center and experience what it's like when our womb is truly holding us, when we are held in our deep center, and how that begins to feel in ourselves, feel in our body, and how that begins to birth our life forward. Um, I was just talking with my practitioner training program around how like women, whether they know it or not, are birthing the world of form. So we're birthing through our centers, through our bodies, the world of form and everything we see around us. So it matters greatly what we allow into our center. It matters greatly that we're aware of what's in our center, and it matters greatly that we place ourselves and inhabit our center. Um, yeah, so beautiful. So if you want money, great. If you want, you know, love, great. If you want whatever, You know, that's, that's the prayer of women. And we all, we all have different prayers and we all have different dreams and we all have different gifts. And so as we gestate that in our center and birth it into the world, you know, we're really weaving the tapestry of life.

Yeah, it's the portal of creation. It's where life is born and you can birth many things from it— your dreams, your mission, your service to the world, um, your creations, your love, your self-expression. I think all of that gets to be birthed through that deep connectedness to ourselves, and that starts with the womb space. So I love the way that you teach and, and describe everything, because you can just— you ooze with passion, and you can just tell that, you know, even you just describing the ovaries and kind of like, if you guys aren't watching on video but on YouTube, you'll be able to see Ali just kind of like acting like a little ovary and like being nestled in her little cave. And it's just so beautiful to like watch you in, in form, um, because you are— this is so, so clearly, um, your life's work and such a mission that's been placed on your heart and what you're meant to do in the world. And you're so good at it. And so it's been a pleasure you here to share that with all the women. Um, I'm sure that many women will listen to this and will be really intrigued, really curious, wanting to go deeper into their own journey of womb care and womb healing, womb wisdom. So can you share with them where they can find you, um, how they can connect with your work, and, uh, what's the best way to kind of connect with you and reach out to you?

Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Sam. The best way to find me is on Instagram at Origin Pelvic Care. And if you want to connect, come into the Well Watered Woman membership. We're really exploring what it is to physiologically and philosophically live as well watered women. Um, the foundation of that is hands, bringing our hands to our bodies every month, learning about our wombs, our reproductive spaces, our sexual ourselves in so many things. Um, and yeah, like, my biggest prayer right now is to have more practitioners of this work. And as we were talking before the call, I'm bringing in a practitioner training program. We have our next cohort beginning in 2025. And just, if you're a woman who's like, I want to learn more, I want to serve the women in my community, I recommend getting on that 2025 I've waitlisted, or reach out to me. And yeah, just come over and say hi. I, you know, I think we're all doing this together, and it excites me. And I just believe in a world of women so deeply connected to their centers and what gets to be possible from that place. So I just so appreciate you, Sam, and having me on here, and all the beautiful work that you're doing. It's so inspiring, and you've impacted me in so many ways as well.

So thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you so much. Thanks for coming on and sharing everything. We'll link everything in the show notes for you guys that you can connect with Ali. You can learn about her practitioner program if you're interested in doing this work and learning from her, and also the membership if you want to, um, yeah, become a more well-watered woman and connect with your womb. So you can find all of that in the show show notes. If you enjoyed this episode, if you learned something new here, if you have another woman in your life who you think would benefit from this information, if you feel how some of those clients of, of Ali's feel at the end where they say, I wish more women had this wisdom, then please take the link to this episode, copy it, and send it to a friend in a message— a mother, a sister, a daughter, someone that you're thinking of that you know could benefit from hearing this and help spread the message. We want to help more women in the world be better connected. So we love you guys. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll talk to you soon. Bye!