Fertility Expert: Conception Is A Spiritual Process (Disguised As Biology)

When do couples stop trying to have a baby and start receiving one?

You're not just trying to get pregnant. You are giving your baby the blueprint for their entire life.

Women are carrying the burden of the load when really it takes two partners leveling up their health and treating it like a team sport.

Miscarriage is 50% linked to male factor and infertility is as well.

Best friends Ranit Menashe and Vida Delrahim both miscarried after doing everything right, leading them to found WeNatal prenatal supplements for men and women.

If you are in fight or flight, it quite literally sends blood to your limbs as if you're being chased, and it's deprioritizing conception. I didn't realize that my sheer Type A control freak grip was not allowing my body to do what it knows how to do. It's about stepping back, having gratitude, letting your body know it's safe to bring a baby into this world. And that was what I was missing in my first miscarriage. I was literally having a chokehold on trying to have a kid.

Trimester 0 is a window of 90 days, essentially, which is the most important trimester. No IVF, no intervention, just focusing on the basics consistently for both of us— diet, lifestyle, nutrients, reducing toxins. In medicine, there is a root cause to almost everything, so why wouldn't there be a root cause to miscarriage or infertility?

Birthing and mother and father coming together to birth a child into the world is the most deeply spiritual act that a human being could ever do. Beyond just the science, what is science and what is media getting wrong about birth and spirituality?

In my own journey, I'll start with this. I thought I was doing all the things, which is the science, right? You're checking the boxes, you're removing toxins from your home, you're taking the supplements, I didn't realize that my sheer Type A control freak grip was not allowing my body to do what it knows how to do. I truly believe we're all made for this. Our bodies need to relinquish a little bit of this modern life that we've been given, which is that we need to do more, take more, you know, work harder. And sometimes it's about stepping back, having gratitude, letting your body know it's safe to bring a baby into this world. And that was what I was missing in my first miscarriage. I was literally having a chokehold on trying to have a kid, and I forgot why me and my husband connected in the first place, why we wanted kids, what I am grateful for. It was only, it took a little bit of coaching from my best friend and going a little bit beyond the basic science.

Yeah.

To allow my body to do what it knew how to do. Wow.

Okay, let's read this passage from this journal. If y'all are watching on YouTube and Spotify, this is the WeNatal guided journal, Manifesting the Family of Your Dreams. I already told y'all I'm gonna do this on the plane.

Love it.

We have a trip.

We're so excited for you guys.

Oh, number 3, you know, God willing, right? Yeah, we do the best we can with nutrients and the scaffolding and feeling the body with love and with mindset and with things that it truly is nourished by, but at the end of the day We have to let go.

100%.

Let God. This quote right here from the book, I'll get to you right in a second. This quote, Anthony Saint-Martin, I believe. You are one thing only. You are a divine being. I almost want to cry when I'm reading this. An all-powerful creator. You're a deity in jeans and a t-shirt. And within you dwells the infinite wisdom of the ages and the sacred creative force of all that is, will be, and ever was. I mean, just let that land for a moment, y'all. The most sacred thing we can do on planet Earth is to bring life and to continue life. What comes up for you when, when you hear that passage from the We Natal Journal?

Oh my gosh, so much. It's just such a magical process. And it's going back to what Vida said. We will share with your audience, you know, what are the things that we learned? And a lot of them are based in science. But it is the truth that at the end of the day, you have to do all the right things and then just let go and then leave it up to God. Because at the end of the day, there are a million ways to become a parent. Not a million ways, but there are many ways to become a parent. And it might not be exactly what you— how you planned it, but you will end up looking back one day and realizing that what happened happened for you, not to you. And you'll be so grateful if you are open enough to see and understand that. And I will share back to, like, even our story. We talk a lot about our miscarriages, and we could go into that and why we started WeNatal. We both had a miscarriage a week apart in early 2020. We were both best friends.

Was this during the lockdown?

Yeah, during the lockdown.

So it was like even more stressful.

Yes.

COVID, early 2020, we both had miscarriages one week apart. She had hers first, then I had mine second. And we could go into what we did after that miscarriage and why that propelled us to start WeNatal. But that life that came into us for such a short— that soul that came into us for such a short time, we're so grateful for it because even though it was the most devastating thing that happened to me in my entire life, losing that pregnancy, I am so grateful for it because now we have this incredible company and platform, WeNatal. We have helped over 30,000 families bring life. We have helped so many couples who have struggled with infertility, who were told you have unexplained infertility, there's nothing you could do. You have zero sperm counts. IVF is your only option. We have helped them essentially bring life. And so to me, that is a miracle. And when I look back, I'm actually grateful to that loss, even though it was so devastating.

Massive silver lining. It's so interesting. Y'all both live in Los Angeles. I spent 40 years in San Diego. And it's not just to pinpoint San Diego or L.A. I think every major metropolis has a bit of spiritual depth and also spiritual passivity, if you know what I mean. Have you seen those t-shirts that say "Good vibes only"?

Yes.

I'm like, not in anyone's life is there such a thing as good vibes only. The reason I'm bringing that up is because, gosh, when you were talking, Ronit, about the loss and the way in which the loss created something that you could have never conceptualized I want to go back even further. You're both working at Nike doing the corporate gig, the corporate grind, essentially, right? Probably in lots of boardrooms with masculine energy, I would assume. Yes.

Yes.

And so bathing in that environment for so long, how did— how long did you both work for Nike?

I was there for 20 years.

20 years.

And I was there for 8 years. Okay.

So like we're talking 1 to 2 decades in an element of competition, masculine energy, constant doing. Do you ever reflect back and go, hey, I wonder if all those years I spent in an environment where I wanted to succeed— there's nothing wrong with a woman wanting to succeed in any environment, but that environment, the way that it was structured, very masculine, very competitive-focused. Nike is one of the biggest companies in North America. I wonder, do you ever feel like that encoded your neural system in a way that potentially informed the miscarriage?

Absolutely.

How so?

I look back now, I was, to your point, in fight or flight mode every single day. Compound that by 10 to 15 years in my career when I just wanted to start my family.

Did you know it at the time or you can reflect back and see it clearly?

I think I'm reflecting back and actually the miscarriage stopped me dead in my tracks. And so there I was, to your point, climbing the corporate ladder thinking I was in wellness. So you would think I'm at a sport and fitness company that I am doing all the right things, But the honest truth is, on the inside, I wasn't. We were having so much coffee to get through the day, snacks, junk food. I mean, these meetings were not nutritious. There was just a bunch of junk everywhere, and we didn't know better. And to be honest, we were working nights, weekends. There was an always-on mentality of you kind of always have to be dialed. If your boss hits you up, you wanna respond immediately. That triggers fight or flight response as if we're being chased by a bear in our own old, old ancestral times. And so that is reserved for once or twice a year, but that was happening every day inside, creating havoc in our body. Yeah, I know for a fact that contributed to my miscarriage because I wasn't sleeping, I was overdosing on coffee, I was eating non-nutrition foods, I was sitting for most of the day, I was indoors for most of the day. All of these things are not equipped to like a true flourishing health and wellness body.

Yeah, I love the name We Natal, because I think about my journey. Our first child, we tried to do the childbirth at home. And the second child, my daughter Naya, it was like having the deepest spiritual experience I could ever describe to you. I was watching my wife birth my daughter in a pool, in a water pool at 9,000 feet in Colorado. That's a whole nother story. But, but yeah, we chose the wrong Airbnb. Birth is kind of crazy. Like, at the last minute, things come to a crescendo. The reason I'm sharing this story is because I look at— it's on the screen right now, y'all— we natal. And we natal is really the combination of man and woman. And for so long, women have been not just in Nike boardrooms treated like men, but women have been personified and put into a box by Western medicine. Early 1900s, Rothschild, the AMA, all the stripping of really the best medicine out there, which is homeopathics. And women have been put into this box. And I think about my own journey now. I'm 6 weeks off of TRT. I'm taking the WeeNatal supplements. We're going to talk so deeply about my process and my wife, what we're creating. But I'm just like, where, where did the disconnect happen between the woman having the prenatal and the man having the prenatal? In other words, when did we lose the truth that making a child is both man and woman?

That was our big aha moment. And so going back to our miscarriages, Vita had hers, then I had mine. When I went into the doctor's office, she said, just happens. It happens a lot after the age of 40. Keep trying.

They call it a geriatric—

geriatric. By the way, I was geriatric with my first, and I had her naturally at the age of 38. So to me, I actually didn't get the PSA about being geriatric until that moment. And so she says, it happens a lot after the age of 41. There's nothing you could do. And that statement made no sense to me because at that point I was working with Dr. Mark Hyman in functional medicine. I know that in medicine there is a root cause to almost everything. So why wouldn't there be a root cause to miscarriage or infertility? And so Luckily for me, on one hand, that moment devastated me, but it also fueled me. And I called every single functional medicine doctor I knew, every single reproductive endocrinologist. I dove into PubMed, every single research study on fertility, and I discovered something that was our big aha moment, and that miscarriage is 50% linked to male factor. And infertility is as well. And so I called Vida and I shared that news with her. And it was so shocking. Like, when I say it now, it feels ridiculous to me when I say men are 50% of the equation. And this is why men need to be doing the things that we also women do and take the responsibility. But back then, we were shocked and nobody was talking about it. And so what we decided to do as two couples is basically put ourselves, both of us with our partners, on this trimester zero protocol. And so what did that look like for us is—

You said trimester zero.

Trimester zero protocol.

That's when you're just thinking about having a baby.

Exactly.

Which is the most important trimester from my perspective. The time that you invest before getting pregnant will improve egg quality, sperm quality, the environment, and overall the lifelong health of the baby. So to me, it's like, why not invest in this timeframe? Because you're not just trying to get pregnant, right? You are giving your baby the blueprint for their entire life. So what you do now will impact their, um, immune system, their entire being. And so we committed to level up, reduce the toxins in our household, level up supplements. We put our husbands on all of the nutrients that ended up becoming Weenadal for him. So CoQ10, NAC, high-dose zinc, B vitamins. And they committed to 3 months of kind of reducing the, um, common yet super toxic behaviors to sperm— alcohol, smoking, um, you know, anything that impairs sperm, even sauna.

I was just gonna say, also sauna. Most people don't know.

Most people don't know, man.

We get to put ice on our area.

Exactly.

That's probably one of the biggest killers of sperm. Because I've read is heat.

Yes. Because it's also like, obviously it's a healthy thing to go into the sauna. It's super healthy, but your sperm doesn't like sauna. And so we committed to 3 months. Obviously our husbands were on board after that devastating loss for both of us. And I committed personally, even though the narrative out there is you are old, you're geriatric, advanced maternal age, keep trying as fast as you can. Every month you're losing eggs and eggs and eggs. And so, but that again didn't make sense to me. I was like, I know that this trimester zero, and we'll talk more about trimester zero, is a window of 90 days essentially. So I said, I'm not gonna try for 3 months. And then guess what happened? On my first try, I got pregnant with my daughter Emma, who's now 5 years old. And I gave birth to her 4 days after my 42nd birthday.

Oh, okay.

Naturally, no IVF, no needles, no intervention, just focusing on the basics consistently for both of us. Yeah. Diet, lifestyle, nutrients, reducing toxins. And then Vita got pregnant 3 months after me and gave birth to her daughter, Dahlia. So we had this experiment that worked for both of us, and we couldn't stop there.

I love that you called it experiment, but really what we're talking about is just sacred wisdom.

It's the basics.

When we get out of the way, I'm speaking from a man, right? I'd love to hear both of y'all's input on this. When we get out of the way, it seems like the body has perfect intelligence. If there is such a thing as perfect intelligence. Even in our imperfectness, it's perfect. Because I think about the way in which, I don't think that the American Medical Association wanted to demonize women or wanted to keep women, I don't think that was a conscious thing for them. I just think a lot of times when we approach anything in life from a space of fear, you're 40-something, you're 35, you have to have a baby. It's this energetic pressure where you're being told if you don't hurry up, then it's not gonna happen, which plants an unconscious seed in a woman's mind that starts to grow if she lets it grow of fear. I wonder what you think about this. Did you get told similar messages, Ronit, where, oh, you're getting older How did you allow your mind to take out that trash and not believe the really propaganda?

It was hard.

That was being fed to you.

I was called geriatric pregnant. I remember them saying, we're doing this extra blood work 'cause you're geriatric. These words, my like mission in this fertility journey is to abolish these words. To your point, it's toxic seeds that we're planting in.

Yeah.

It doesn't help them. It's useless. And yes, I was told that. Then on my second pregnancy, they thought it was better to be called me advanced maternal age. It's just as insulting. And the reality is more women are now having babies in their 40s than their 20s. It's time for us to shift the narrative.

Yeah, I could see that.

And I was told, you know, it was, yes, this fertility was this black box of misinformation. I didn't know where to go, who to trust. Lucky for me, my best friend was working alongside a functional medicine practitioner that is the top of his game. But it's really hard. And I was taught that fertility is a woman's health issue, and it's not. It's a team sport. And so, where it got mixed up. I just think historically over time, women are carrying the burden of the load when really it takes two partners leveling up their health and treating it like a team sport. Josh, you're super athletic. If tomorrow I signed you up for LA Marathon, you wouldn't just sign up and run. I know you, you would do the—

I probably wouldn't run the marathon. I'd do like a 5K.

Okay. But if I forced you—

no, no diss on marathoners.

No, I get it.

I did one. I was like, I'm good.

One and done for me too.

I did one and one and done.

One and done. That's what's up. Mark.

Check. Done.

But I think the reality is for everything else in life, we know to train, we know to get the training plan, the right shoes and apparel, the recovery plan, and then show up on race day. It's the last step. Like I saw some of the best athletes compete in the world, right? Alongside the Nike career.

Sure.

The race day was the final step. It's really the prep that went into making them great. That's the part nobody sees.

This is so good. Okay, let me pass it to you. When do couples stop trying to have a baby and start receiving one? At what point of the psychological evolution do they stop coming at it from fear of, we have to have a baby, to then actually relaxing into the fact that their body knows what to do and giving their body exactly what it needs?

First of all, knowing that you put the right inputs in— like, you, you have to do the work, right? Like, you can't just, like, relax and that's it, right? You have to be educated and understand that your diet and lifestyle and environment impacts your fertility. That being said, allowing it to come in, letting go, and understanding that you actually cannot control everything. Like, you know, I didn't know if I was going to be able to get pregnant with Emma, but I did. And I actually— I have a very funny story. So we had tried, and again, I knew that Yuri, my husband, was doing all the right things. I was doing all the right things, and I let go. I actually didn't think or expect that I would get pregnant that quickly. And I had friends over for dinner one night, and I took a pregnancy test because I thought, like, oh, it would be so fun if I am pregnant.

Yeah.

And I looked at it, and it was negative. So I threw it in the trash. Next morning, my husband's— my husband runs in the door. He was like throwing out the trash, and he runs in and he's like, it's positive. And I was like, what? I was shocked.

Wasn't it marked when you saw it negative first?

I think because I so wasn't expecting it to be positive, I like barely even waited the minute that you're supposed to wait, or 2 minutes, and I threw it in the trash.

It was a false negative.

It was actually a positive. It was on me. I didn't wait enough to see that it was positive. And so I think it's really about doing everything that you can and then letting go. And everybody will have a different journey. We have somebody on our team who had her baby at the age of 56, and she had infertility for 18 years. This is her journey. And she is a very, very faith-based person. Her name is Penny. We actually just wrote a tear-jerking blog about her on our website. We could share it with your audience. And she held on to the faith, but also she did the work. It goes hand in hand. And I also have one more thing to say about kind of like that seed that's put in your head. Before I met my husband, I was considering freezing my eggs. I met him when I was 35. So at the age of 34, I went to the doctor and she checked my fertility. And they looked at one measure called AMH, which is essentially your ovarian reserve. Like, how many eggs do you have in the bank, essentially?

Yeah.

And it was very low. And you know what I decided to do at that moment? I took that number, I set it aside, and I told myself, I'm not gonna freak out over this. I'm a super healthy person. At that point, I had left Nike, I was into CrossFit, I was working in the wellness space. I was like, I am not going to be driven by fear and lead my life with fear and focus on this number. So this is a PSA because it's, it's very easy to hear from doctors or friends or people, all the opinions that people have, and kind of trust yourself and trust your body and just trust the journey.

That's a great story and a great answer to my question, which was how can couples stop trying to have a baby and just relax into what's required? And I think you mentioned do the work, which I love that phrase. I don't think that in the spiritual community that's a phrase that doesn't apply, or especially with emotional intelligence either. When you say do the work, do you mean supplementation and the building blocks, or is it also mindset and emotional intelligence?

It's all of the above.

But is it those three, or are there— are those the big three?

I would say it's, it's, you know, your diet, your diet and supplements, because those two go hand in hand, and we'll talk about why they do. It's your mindset. That's a big, big pillar of our brand. And we talked about the journal. That's why every single couple that comes into the WeNatal ecosystem gets a free journal with their subscription. And then it's actually the toxic environment that we're living in and kind of trying to reduce that toxic burden that is created by plastics, endocrine disruptors, phthalates, all of those things.

Yeah.

And so it's kind of those three things from a high level.

Well, those, those levels are individual podcasts of their own. So we won't go too deep into those, but it is important to do the work. And I think about both of your journeys where there was really a reconciliation of loss. Like, I feel like as a country, and you've experienced it as now mothers and people that have gone through loss with the miscarriages. Um, my brother's wife too. Like, we're going tomorrow to visit them in Tennessee. And they had such a challenging time. Like, I can, I can go back in my timeline and like feel the sadness of that moment, like multiple miscarriages, just so much anguish and pain. I've had friends here in Austin that have, that have lost babies to miscarriage. And I think about the work that's required to actually move forward. One could call it your emotional resilience. We could also call it a connection to God. But I wonder what you would call it. How does a woman move through a loss of a life that she wanted so desperately to come in, but God had other plans? How do you move through that?

It's not easy, and it does require a little bit of that— a few things for me, at least. I had all the emotions— anger, why me? I had to work through my own journey. And actually, back to the super driven career woman, I quickly didn't mourn it the way I should have, and I'll explain how it came out. I wanted to rush back to work because I didn't want my male counterparts to look less of me or see me as weak. It was a very vulnerable time. I had already passed the first trimester, so all my coworkers knew. So when I was coming back from work from this loss, I actually remember emailing the whole office saying, please don't hug me, please don't address it. I didn't wanna burst into tears in the office. Yeah. Now looking back, I found it so silly that I was like, I needed the support. I needed to know who around me had miscarriages. I needed to know to lean in on the love of community, but instead I tried to be strong. Fast forward to something else in my house. Uh, we had another loss in the family and that triggered the emotions of the loss of my child. So I pushed it to the side on my first loss and I've, I've had two and it came out in a different way when I was least expecting it. I grieved and grieved and grieved. And for me it was finding a little bit of that gratitude even in the darkest moments. Some days it was, just that the sun is shining, or I heard a bird singing. Like, I, I had to move away from the victim, and that knowing things and my practice into, you know, spirituality really helped me see that things are happening for me, not to me. I'm not a victim. This will play out the way it should, and that wasn't my time, but this isn't the end of my story. And I think Ronit told me about a book called Spirit Babies, and that really told me that that soul could still be waiting, just the time wasn't right. Or maybe it wasn't a safe space for me to come in. Like, I wasn't giving it the right signals to know that it's safe and welcome to come. Yeah. And so I leaned into the gratitude, I leaned into doing the work and my mental health, and together that's when I actually had my first daughter, who's now 8, Dalia. And so I'd say it takes a little bit of the work in both the physical work and the spiritual work to get your body in a safe zone, 'cause like if you are in fight or flight, it quite literally sends blood to your limbs as if you're being chased. And it's deprioritizing conception. So we just have to try. I know like telling people don't stress is actually insulting when you're in it, right? You're like, what do you mean don't stress? I want a baby more than anything. It's not nice to say that to people. All you have to do is befriend it, find things that work for you, get out in nature, Literally do things that can actually— movement is a big one— things that can combat it and let your body know that it's safe and welcome. It can welcome.

It's different for everybody. For some people it might be meditation, others it might be gratitude. For others it might be go out and hang out with your girlfriends or go on a date with your husband. Try to remember why you're even doing this in the first place. But gratitude for me personally has been the number one way I've navigated all the hardships in life. We talked a little bit before the podcast about how I lost my house in the Palisades fire. And this was about a year and a half ago. And with all of the loss, I have been so grateful. And I know, and I already see why the fire happened. I already understand that this was actually a miracle for my family. We lost our house, our community, our school. We have been like, you know, dispersed and living in other, like in a very small place, but it's been a miracle for my family. And so all of that to say is that when you're in it, it's so, so hard, but there will be the silver linings if you look for them.

There's silver linings and through lines between both of your stories. And I think about the mystery of the creator, the mystery of God. And I'm not here to say that my views on God are the one or that yours are, 'cause everybody I think is praying to the same thing. They just use different language. That's kind of how I see it.

For sure, 100%.

Right? Everybody's doing the best they can with the level of consciousness they have, which is why this conversation is so important. I think about a couple that's done IVF 10 times or more. And they've all been told the same ticker tape story that it's like, well, this is just the way it is and you have to accept that. It's not that those people in the hospital have ill intent. I actually think they have positive intent.

100%.

It's just that they have seen over and over and over again that at least their way, if they force it, works some of the time. So they're gonna go with that versus anything else. I'll share a quick story 'cause this totally relates to we, natal, for sure. We had to go and get transferred to the hospital. And I actually had to sign a form that was a medical release form because they were afraid that he had meningitis and were totally underslept for a week. And when— I don't know if you all have had people in your community share when parents unfortunately do have to transfer to the NICU. It is the most insane, stressful thing. It's like you're in the clutches of the belly of the beast.

Yes.

Yeah.

They're poking you around. You're not sleeping. They're doing all these tests. Unnecessary tests. And I asked the doctor, I said, so you're telling me based on the research that if it's a 0.0001% chance or if it's 100% chance, you treat it the same? And her answer was yes. And that told me everything that I needed to know about how Western medicine looks at childbirth, looks at women actually doing what their bodies know naturally how to do. And I'll never forget this, ladies, that the very next day we had to sign the form, we took our son home, Doo doo doo. Huge 6-foot-tall Black guy comes to the door. Child Protective Services. I want to make sure that this baby's safe. And I'm just— the rage that I felt in my chest.

Oh my gosh.

And he had to take photos of our home all because I didn't want to do what I thought was an experimental procedure. So what I'm saying is, like, there's some clutches that we're all looking at here. Modernity has clutches, and those clutches impact women way more drastically than men. I just happened to feel it.

Yeah.

When this massive man comes to our door and I'm like, what's he— I— it took me a while to even figure out what was happening. Child Protective Services. It was all because I trusted that he would be okay. You trusted that you could have a child, and so did you. There's a certain way that I think we've fallen into these clutches of, well, if I just be a good little boy or a good little girl and do what mommy and daddy say, or I do what big medicine says or a hospital says, then I'll be safe. My question with the preface of that story is that when it comes to safety in childbirth, when it comes to safety as a mother, it's really a combination of you letting go and doing the work that you talked about. Is there anything else that I'm missing? It's like, to really be safe as a mother, to really be safe as a mother who brings life into the world through her body, which is so amazing, by the way, this even happens. It's like, I think sometimes we just forget how absolutely— it's a miracle. It's a miracle. It's a miracle that a baby comes out of you that grows inside you.

It's just so wild. It's, it's wild. It's the same thing.

We look at fire, we're like, oh, electricity, fire, child. They're all, they're all magical things.

Yeah.

They're straight up magical.

Yeah.

So that's my question for you is when it comes to safety, what is your role as a mother, as a woman, to actually create safety starting with the words you let in and starting with the words you allow yourself to hear?

I mean, we can have a whole podcast about this.

Let's go deeper into this. This is the spiritual quotient of this conversation.

Yeah, I think one part of it is understanding that you know yourself best and you know your children the best, and understanding that as a mother, you have intuition about your children. That is stronger than any medical opinion from any doctor. So I think that is such an important thing and it's such an important message. And actually, we talk a lot about at WeNatal in our business, when we were first starting our company, people always ask us, like, what do you wish you did differently? And I think, like, as a business owner, I think The same advice applies. I wish we trusted our intuition better when we first started our company. Now we have the confidence and we understand that we need to trust our intuition. And same goes with our children, same goes with our own health. So I'll share a story from my pregnancy with Emma. I had this feeling that there was something wrong with my pregnancy. And I had this midwife group in Santa Monica, and every time I kept kind of, like, pushing them, they said, oh, it's okay, just, like, check your blood pressure at home. You're okay. And I said, I want you to test me for preeclampsia because I have a feeling that I have that.

And what is preeclampsia?

Preeclampsia is essentially high blood pressure in pregnancy that is is the number one cause of maternal death. Okay, so this is actually a fatal pregnancy complication. And so they say to me, okay, the lab is closed today, but come in tomorrow and get your labs done. It's a very simple urine test and blood test. I went in, got the blood test, got the urine test. A few hours later, I was called in to get induced because I did have preeclampsia. So it is about trusting yourself enough and to not be undermined by the noise that you hear within the systems. Listen, I believe that these doctors and these midwives were amazing, but they're all busy and they don't have the intuition that you have. And you know what's so interesting about— I have the most amazing pediatrician in Los Angeles. Anytime he talks to me about my kids' health, he goes, what does your mom intuition tell you about this? He wants to hear from me. And that's how strong that is. We know so much more than we let ourselves to know. And so I want your audience to believe in themselves and believe in their intuition. It's so powerful.

I think if you just replay that, y'all, 30 seconds back, a few times, it'll sink in. The unconscious is really— it's like a rose. And especially I think about children, you know, ages 0 through 7, their brain hemispheres are connected. They're essentially on drugs or psychedelics, right? That's why they pretend they're astronauts and etc. We still have that in us.

Yeah.

And I think that the intuition that you spoke about— I love your pediatrician, by the way, that would be a great one to have here in Austin.

Yeah.

Um, I think about the way in which we lose that childlikeness in life. And I believe— I'm curious what y'all believe. I know that y'all believe this because if your parents or whatever is driving you to become a parent, it's this return to innocence that we feel. I know I felt it as a dad. I've had moments where I'm playing with my children and I'll just start crying and I'm like, what? Why am I feeling like, what is this all about? It's because I believe that children come into our lives to heal our lineage and to heal us. So that we can return to the wholeness of who we are.

Mm-hmm.

And I wonder, I'll get individual from both of you. Let's go to you first. When you brought life into the world, what part of your lineage was healed? What part of you came back online? And was it intuition? Was it joy? Was it love? Was it acceptance? What parts of you healed and came back online when you had a child?

It's such a good question. So before I got super deep into spirituality, this, first of all, I had the loss, then I had my first child, and I was that person you spoke about. I was a quote unquote good girl. I'm a rule player. I typically listen to experts, you know, bosses, and I like to keep the calm and keep the peace. That's how I was raised. And so when I, I also was very Type A, plan everything, like, you know, like my calendar, like a schedule. My daughter was brought into the world. First of all, they rush induced me also because they were worried she wasn't growing enough. So from the beginning, I was nervous. I'd already had the miscarriage, and so everything about my pregnancy freaked me out. So there was a level of low-key anxiety that was hanging throughout. Then I had her. There's no playbook. She was colicky, she was up all night, she was crying. The sleep deprivation that you talked about, I was not prepared for. I was not myself. And I had to let go of every type of schedule I'd ever thought I could create. Every time I think I figured something out with her, she would flip. I got, oh, a 3-hour nap and tomorrow she's gonna have it. It was 10 minutes the next day. Literally every time I thought I learned something and I had to learn to go with the flow, which was for me one of the biggest lessons in life. I am not like a relaxed person. I like to plan. And so she came into my world to teach my soul how to go with the flow, to be in tune to her needs, to, slow down, which was not something I knew how to do. And so I just, like you, I truly deeply believe every day they're teaching us lessons. And for me it was a little bit. And through the work with her and even my second child was how I went deeper in spirituality because I was trying to grip everything and that was no way to live. And one day kind of the light bulb went off for me that I wasn't my highest self, which called me to Kabbalah, which is why I went to the classes and started to really realize that reactivity gets you nowhere in life. And actually stepping back and appreciating everything and seeing the signs and seeing the lessons, everything, my perspective, I've become a completely different person, I would say, the last 5 years. And it's so powerful. This is my guru. Yeah.

How did that impact your marriage?

It's so funny you ask because I started going to classes, I transformed so much that my husband freaked out and signed up because he is like, I don't wanna get left behind. He saw such a radical change in me. Me, one that didn't fight back, one that like embraced the challenges, that like leaned into them rather than— I like literally, you know, a couple months ago someone dinged my car, it wasn't even moving, he came and rammed right into me instead. Like it would've been like, you know, the mental load of like, I have too much to do and this is a pain. And instead I was like, I'm so grateful, this isn't my path for a reason. And I came outta the car just like, are you okay? And like, let's get through this. Like it is that slight shift in perspective towards everything that has transformed my life. And the miracles don't stop showing up. It's pretty powerful.

Okay. I'm, I'm so interested because you've seen this evolution in her and you've seen an evolution in her.

Yes, of course.

What evolved? I find it so fascinating. This etymology of words inside of the word evolution is love. So what evolution with the word love inside of it? What evolution did you go on? What came alive in you when you brought life into the world?

Gosh, for me, a lot of things that are very similar, but I would say—

Did you struggle with control and schedules as well?

Not necessarily control and schedules, but a lack of presence. That was a big thing for me. Like, hard— like, being a multitasker, that was always my thing. I could get a lot of things done and I could do them quickly. And then I had my first, Aden, which I breastfed for 3 years, who just loved breastfeeding, loved breastfeeding all night long. And here I was basically like in, like I couldn't move, you know what I mean? And so for me, having kids really helped me become more present and like accept that, that it's okay to not be, productive. This is being productive, actually. This is the most important thing. And I also think that—

that's gold right there.

Yeah.

Y'all, like, play that again. Can you say that one more time?

Not when you're, when you're breastfeeding your child for 3 years and all they wanna do is drink milk and like, you feel like you're chained to the bed or the couch or wherever it is, you feel like you're not being productive, but that's probably the most productive thing that you could be doing. Because this liquid gold is giving everything to your child. And that's the reason why you birthed them is, you know, and so I think that was a big, big lesson for me. Another big lesson is just like having fun. You know, kids are so fun. They're so fun.

So fun.

And they have fun. State is fun, you know? And so it's like, it's seeing them and seeing life through their eyes really helps me focus more on just having more fun because it is easy to get serious and you're running a business and you have emails and you're managing a team and then you forget to have fun. But I will tell you that through our kids, we have been prioritizing so much more fun. Like recently we had our, we, Nadel turned 4 and we had our 4-year birthday party. And instead of just having, you know, speeches and kind of like boring stuff, we decided to do a family dance. And we decided to tell the story of Weenadal through dance. So the dance started by me and Vida, and then our husbands popped in, and then our kids popped in. And that is the story of Weenadal. And it was so much fun, and it was a family affair. And so I think, you know, obviously having kids is just like, you know, we have been prioritizing more fun and for them to see us running a business and having fun at the same time. And by the way, our customer stories and impacting all these people, we talk about this all day long. If you talk to my 10-year-old, she will talk to you about egg and sperm quality. She knows exactly what those two things are.

That's so nice.

You know, for me, like, good for her. So excited that we're able to raise kids and, you know, make an impact on so many people and have fun along the way.

I love both of your stories. You know, this podcast is— this is my 11th year of holding these conversations with Josh Trent.

Early adopter.

I'm like, wow, 11 years. Yeah. And I think about the man that I was in 2015 when I started. I don't even— y'all remember where you were in 2015. It's like, jump the timeline.

I know.

So I look at that man, I look at the man now. I have had to allow so many layers of Josh Trent to die.

Mm-hmm.

Resentments, grief, judgment, pornography addiction, sexualization of women. I've shared this with my audience over the past decade, and I think about the way in which men are called forth. We've spoken a lot about women in the conversation. I'd love to shift to men. Men are called forth now on planet Earth, I believe, to hold the kind of space that I don't know if we've ever held before. And by space, I mean, just our ability to trust our wives, and to trust the mother of our children in a way that we really get to look at societal conditioning in order to do so. I think, and I wonder how you feel, you know, the data shows us all, it's on the screen right now, y'all, the PubMed study, 60% reduction in sperm quality compared to our grandparents. Like, let the research you see on the screen now speak the truth. I think that, that scientific research is a window into a lack of emotional intelligence to be able to care for our bodies as men, to be able to regulate our nervous system as men, our neural system. And all that comes into how we either are holding containment— and I don't mean control when I say containment, I just mean containment. Of our women, of our wives. Why do you think that this is happening? I want to get both of your takes on this. Why do you think this is happening, this 60% reduction in sperm compared to our grandparents, which is wild? It hasn't been that long, 100 years, something like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What do you believe is the societal construct that men have been believing that has made sperm decrease so rapidly, and what do you think the healing solution actually is besides the gold standard of taking care of the body. I know we're going to get into that. The science is important, but what about the emotional and the spiritual quotient and how men have been trained to not support women?

From what I've seen in my own life, I think a lot of men, including my husband, for the most amount of time has not dealt with his childhood stuff, has not dealt with his emotions, and in fact uses substances to suppress them. So you think, think about things these days like alcohol and marijuana and things that have become so common and legalized. Yeah, but really it's an antidepressant, or whatever you're doing, you're trying to suppress something.

Sure.

And to me, back to the work needs to be done, really going deep on the healing, which is the root of all of this. If you think about why someone might be— and I know a lot of people in, especially in Los Angeles, smoking marijuana morning, noon, and night— like, what are you running from? And for me, it is that emotional either it's the negative self-talk, it's the stuff, we all have trauma. None of us are greater than the other. You've been so vulnerable to share yours, which is so powerful because people can see themselves in you.

It doesn't even feel vulnerable anymore. I've shared it so many times. I'm just like, y'all already know.

I love it. And people, men especially, I think it's much more common that women find community, women find therapy, women will find the things, I think, easier. Again, it's not easy for everybody, But I'll say as a vast generalization is that we lean on each other, we talk to our friends, we will sign ourselves up for therapy. Where I see most men, the masculine energy comes in, especially I come from a Persian culture where it's like, the men just don't seek the help and they need it. I see it in my own father who definitely went through generational stuff and instead they hold a lot. And so to me, your body, you can't cheat the body, it knows.

To me, it feels like we're individually and societally emotionally constipated. Like, we just, we just need to like move the energy. That's why so many people are going to Paint Canyon and doing ayahuasca. It's like they're trying to seek God, but they're doing it because their friend did something and they think it's cool.

Exactly. Plant medicine, all the things. Exactly. And everyone's finding their own way. Everyone, to your point, is doing their best.

Doing the best.

But they need the tools. And to me, it's going deep versus like medicating, you know, so good.

Can you extrapolate on that? And can you bring— can you weave in science on that? Because what you're talking about is people that smoke, drink, let's be honest, have sex with a bunch of people, addiction, any addiction, right? Gabor Maté says that the opposite of addiction is disconnection from self or other. That's the root of addiction.

Correct.

Same thing with all the addiction, especially Judd Brewer I've had on the show. They all talk about the same thing. Even Zach Bush. He's been on here 4 times and he said, you know, cancer is just like cells that forgot they were part of the whole. They just forgot.

Yeah.

And so I think about what you said with the Persian culture and the training. Can you extrapolate on that from— from if somebody's in addiction, they're not thinking about taking omega-3s and CoQ10. It's just not even in their consciousness. Right. Can you— can you expand that a little bit?

I mean, if someone is in addiction, addicted to anything, they're not present in their relationship.

Yeah.

They're not present with their partner. They're not going through that journal and writing what they're grateful for, and they're not talking about what type of family they want to have. And I think that addiction is one part of it. Obviously, not all men are walking around with addictions, but it's, it's part of the story. And I think the other thing is that we live in a society where we see like older men having babies on a regular basis.

Yeah.

You have celebrities like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino and all of these men are having babies later in life.

Right.

And they're 70s, 80 years old. Men are constantly generating sperm. And so there's this idea that I think men are also being fed of, like, their fertility doesn't decline.

It's—

they're good. They're always producing sperm. It doesn't matter. No matter what their age is, they can always get someone pregnant. So I think there's also this subconscious idea of, it can't be me because I'm always making sperm.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. There's something I was going to mention to you. Okay, so sperm quality is not sperm count. Motility, morphology and DNA integrity. That's an interesting one. DNA integrity. Can you share with us what that is and how does the proper supplementation actually start to fortify the DNA integrity?

Yeah. So you're looking at all the different sperm parameters when you're looking at sperm quality, count, motility is like how they swim. Morphology is the shape. You need all of those things to be perfect. And then of course, the DNA integrity. So the DNA integrity is what is going to essentially cause an abnormal or a normal embryo. So between, you want good egg quality and good sperm quality with the right DNA integrity to have the perfect chromosomal balance to make a healthy baby essentially. And so we have been seeing, yes, you, you mentioned the stats, men have 50% less sperm compared to their grandfathers. And actually, since the year 2000, the decline in sperm counts have been accelerated. So they have been declining 1% per year, and since the year 2000, they've been declining by 2.6% per year. The other thing to note is that a lot of kind of what we're seeing with sperm counts, we also see in dogs. So dogs are sharing the same environment that we live in. They're drinking the same water, they're exposed to the same environment and toxins. So when you see a different species have a similar trend, that to me signals that there's something systematically happening in our environment.

Yeah.

That is on top of all the things that we already talked about. It's on top of, the mindset, it's on top of the addiction. And so there are researchers like Dr. Shanna Swan who talks about the effects of plastics and BPAs specifically on sperm. And I don't know if you saw her recent Netflix documentary called The Plastic Detox.

No, but we'll link that. I've been hearing so much about microplastics for men and sperm.

So the TL;DR is microplastics are everywhere, including in our testicles, and it's a big issue specifically with sperm. And what Dr. Shauna Swan did with these couples is she took 6 couples that had unexplained infertility. She reduced the toxic burden in their households and the foods that they were eating. By the way, our foods have BPA because they are lined in plastic. When you're getting food in takeout containers, guess what's being seeped into your food? Sure. You're getting coffee in a coffee cup.

Guess what's lined in that coffee cup? The worst— sorry to interrupt you— the worst is the Costco chicken.

Have you seen the levels on the Costco chicken with the black?

Costco takes— so that's a loss leader for Costco, so they get people to come in just because, you know, they lose money, they buy everything else. But they're sitting in black plastic, crazy, for like 2 days in heat, and then people are eating that chicken. Of course sperm count is declining. It doesn't take a scientist to figure this out.

100%. But a lot of people don't know this information. They just don't know. They don't think about it and they don't know about it. And that's why we're so passionate about it. They think they're eating chicken, which is obviously healthy, kind of. It's protein at the very least. Do you know what I mean? And so anyway, in this documentary, she takes 6 couples, she puts them through the plastic detox. And then 3 out of these couples who have had unexplained infertility for years get pregnant. And also she shows a correlation with their decline in their system of BPA and phthalates. So that to me is a big one. So it's like the environment and what can you do to support your system. And by the way, to your listeners, if sperm declines the way that it has been declining, we can reach zero sperm count by 2045. That is around the corner. That is an existential issue. So that is something that we— but on the flip side, why we love talking about sperm 24/7 is because sperm is constantly regenerating. And if you want to completely transform your sperm, you can in 3 months.

But you have to transform yourself.

You have to. Of course, this is the caveat.

Yes.

So it's not going to transform on its own.

Listen, let's go go through this checklist, like, I found out about— I think it was a year ago, and I've been in this— I was a trainer for 10 years. I've had this— I've been 20-plus years in health and wellness. I had never heard of the plastic thing until a year ago, like, actually for sperm, the connection to sperm. I mean, I knew that plastics were in stuff. We use glass containers at our house, etc. Yeah, but it was so wild. So I know that Bryan Johnson just did a public, uh, share about his plastic test. Yeah, and he found that it was actually sauna, which is a paradox, right? Because we have to put ice down there as men, otherwise sperm die. Yeah, so that's one checklist. What, what are some of the other things when we look at removing the plastic, which essentially denigrates and kills the sperm from the body? So sauna is great. That's proven through his test. I guess there's one test, uh, that you can actually get as a man to see your plastic levels. Have you heard about this?

Yeah, I don't know the name. They did it in the documentary.

Yeah, okay, cool.

So we know it exists. We know the test exists. He found that sauna was was a huge part of that.

Well, sauna helps you detox, right? And you want to detox your pathways, you're getting the plastics out of your body.

So then what, what are some of the things in the WeeNadle for him that help to bolster and build the sperm?

Basically, the foundation of the formula is antioxidants. What do antioxidants do? They protect the sperm from oxidative stress. Oxidative stress, think about it as like an apple that you cut open and is like turning brown. But what helps it not turn brown is if you squeeze a lemon on it. So you have those antioxidants that are protecting the sperm from oxidative stress. The, the star of the show is CoQ10, which I'm sure your audience has all heard about for sperm quality. CoQ10, NAC, so that's N-acetylcysteine, high-dose vitamin C, zinc, and then you have your B vitamins because you obviously need like a high-spectrum B for or just as a multivitamin. Um, and I would say those are like the big ones. It's essentially like a multivitamin on steroids with antioxidants in it.

So we have the plastic removal from the detox, then we have the bolstering with the CoQ10 and the NAC. What else to really make these sperm strong? I want my sperm to have like biceps, you know.

Like, I want— I want to tell you, speaking of biceps, we just did a clinical study on our men's Prenatal, and we had basically men reporting better physical strength, better muscular strength. So not only will your sperm get biceps, you might get— I mean, you already have biceps, but you know, I could grow bigger biceps.

Yeah, so just, you know. Okay, cool. Do we miss anything? Because I really want to share the load. Your company is WeNatal, right? WeNatal. I love that. It's the we, not Westside. Okay, but we. Like we are, we're half beast, half spirit. We're made in the image of God. We're here on Earth. We're figuring it out. We use these words to try to describe the ineffable. Yeah, we really try our very best to, to make meaning out of all these things that happen for us. Notice I said for us, not to us, right? Going back to your mindset piece that's in the journal, by the way. I love that you give this to people. So my question for you is, what else from the masculine, what else from men do men really get to know when they too share the same passion and sacred stewardship of bringing life into the world? What else do they get to know?

Well, first of all, they get to know that they're not just improving fertility, their overall health, it's hand in hand. And I think that's a big myth too. A lot of times we do this checkbox, like you, when we're in that phase of trying to conceive, but don't we all wanna live long, healthy lives for our kids and the kids we're bringing into it? And so one, the marker is that it is this, epic multi that you should stay on even when you're a dad, because now you wanna chase the kids, you wanna be active, you wanna, we wanna be the best version of ourselves. And we also know that food alone is not enough. We come from grandparents who could get everything they needed from food. And my mom didn't even understand why we need supplements. But when you look at our food system today, soils are depleted, we can't get it alone from food. One orange in our grandparents' generation is equivalent to us eating 8 oranges today. And on average, our food is traveling over 1,500 miles to get to us. Not everyone has chickens like you, Josh, in their backyard. So, you know, at quite, that's all losing the, you know, nutrition value as it gets to your plate. And so even all of us who are trying to eat organic, trying to eat a healthy food, to your point, the Costco chicken, it is not as nutritious as it used to be. And so supplementing is the easiest insurance policy, lowest hanging fruit to just make sure you're getting it all because also, 90% of pregnant women are not meeting the nutrients they need for pregnancy. And sadly, why we even came out with Prenatals was because 99% of the supplements on the market don't meet the nutritional needs of what both partners need. And really, no one was talking to the men's side of the equation.

But you also can't supplement yourself out of a bad diet. So let's talk about— you can't just expect that if you take a supplement and like nothing else changes, you you will see a difference in your sperm. By the way, why we love talking about sperm so much is men have this unique ability to regenerate sperm. It's called spermatogenesis. And every 72 days, a man has a new batch of sperm. So your sperm today was impacted, but by what you did in the last 72 days. That's why we talk about the window of trimester zero as 3 months. We kind of look at it as like an average of 3 months because what you did in those 3 months will impact that sperm at the time of conception. So super important. And diet is obviously a big one. 70% of Americans are eating ultra-processed foods. People are not moving enough. And there's so much research around the Mediterranean diet and fertility for both men and women. So what does that look like? Protein, colorful fruits and veggies, nuts and seeds, good fats, sourdough bread, right? Sourdough bread, the basics, you know, the basics. And so we're not here to tell your audience— we're not Bryan Johnson. You don't need a 25-step, um—

I would recommend none of us be Bryan Johnson. He's even said that, right?

Don't try to be him. Exactly. You don't need like a crazy long biohacking protocol. It's the basics. It's the ancient wisdom that you talked about. And this ancient wisdom is actually what our customers are coming to and coming to us to, because they have not been given a roadmap. Same as us. We weren't given a roadmap from our doctor. They just said, keep trying, or you're too old. But now we have people that come to us. For instance, we have somebody that Vito was in touch with. Her name is Sephora. She, her and her husband were trying, they went down the route of IVF and they got zero viable embryos. They then heard a podcast that we did with our friend Courtney Swan, Real Foodology, and they learned about the power of diet, lifestyle supplements, and they committed as a couple to do those things for 3 months. They then did another round of IVF and they got 7 viable embryos. 7, from 0 to 7. The reason why I'm using this IVF example is because with natural fertility, you can't see the numbers, so it's hard to really understand the impact that diet and lifestyle is making on the outcomes. But when you see 0 to 7 embryos, that is a crazy improvement. And what she says is that It wasn't even the embryos. And by the way, she's now pregnant, about 30 weeks pregnant. It was the hope that we gave her. It was that we gave her a roadmap. It was that we talked about doing things consistently and not from a place of perfection. It's really the consistency. And your body and your cells are listening to the inputs that you're doing consistently on a daily basis. Wow.

Okay, so this trimester zero for men, What? Because I'm in it. Yeah, you're in it. I'm actually— I'm on day 40. Oh, amazing. Yeah, it's only been 2 weeks with the weed needle though, so I'm gonna get to re-up on that because I didn't do a pre-sperm test. I just assumed it was zero because I've been on TRT for 2 years. Yeah, I was just like, yeah, it's probably zero. Yeah. So I'm working with Kirk Parsley. He's been a guest. Navy Special Warfare MD. You know Kirk? You've heard of him?

No, but I love that you're working with somebody. And actually, PSA to your audience, they might not know that when you're on TRT it basically leads to zero sperm or low sperm. So that's a big one that we talk about all the time. So first step, great. Yeah.

And, and HCG and clomiphene and other things, right? Like, this is not medical advice, this is my situation. Yeah, yeah. Um, everybody's got their own unique photography, right, internally. So, so I look at— so I'm actually one of your case studies, which is quite interesting. I, I feel like I feel like the universe, I feel like my creator brought me to WeNatal so that we could really do this third time's the charm, baby. Yeah. The first time it was really hard. I learned so much about myself. I would do everything so differently. The second time was also really hard, but we had this beautiful outcome and we had a gorgeous, beautiful outcome on both of them. We have two gorgeous children, two amazing children. But this third child, I want to do it so differently. I want to do it so differently because I'm such a different man. We're so excited for you. And so anything at all, and whether you're like a first-time dad or mom or fifth, whatever, there's ways in which we can always improve. Yep. Not for the sake of like trying to get it perfect because there ain't no perfect. But my question for you is, as, as I go through this trimester zero, I'm on day 40-ish, right? What else can I be doing? I mean, I'm— I have a sauna at home, I'm icing, I'm taking the Weenadal, I'm very militant with plastic use in our house, we drink very clean water, we mostly organic food as much as humanly possible, probably 80-90% of the time. What else can I really be doing as a man? Could be diet, could be emotional, yeah, could be spiritual. I want to hear from both of you on this because like you have unique perspectives. What else could I be doing emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually?

Okay, so there's other things. You're doing, by the way, a great job. I think you're doing more than most, and I think this education is huge. So outside of the sauna, heat in general, think about heated car seats, the jacuzzi, think about— Jacuzzi. Yeah, there's so many things that we don't realize. So heat in general, ice it down there or skip it. You talked about movement. Movement, there's studies that show 4,000 steps for a man can dramatically boost their testosterone. So just getting in the steps. A lot of us are sedentary. Getting outdoors, which you're very blessed to have this beautiful, close to nature home, but we need to get outdoors much more. Also, the most underrated and untalked about thing in my opinion is sleep. Sleep is this world where we're all deprioritizing when we really should be prioritizing. It is when our immune system restores itself, our hormones are normalized, And it is a powerful time to prioritize even sleep. There's some medical experts that say sleep over working out if you had to choose, because sleep is so powerful. And we're all doom scrolling, we're watching more TV, we're sleeping less and less when it's a game changer for fertility and overall health. And then we've talked about eating clean, the movement, the ditching the toxins, not just plastics. I'd say our kitchen and bathroom being probably the most toxic areas of our home. It's not about removing everything at once. To Ronit's point, it's a little bit about consistency. And when you run out of one thing, can you find a cleaner option? Personal care items that we're rubbing all over our bodies, you know, anything you're using on a consistent basis. There's so many great options from your frying pans to, you know, the sheets that you sleep on. Everything can have a cleaner version and it shouldn't feel unattainable. Should just feel that like I'm empowering myself to do the things and then let go. And then of course, the mental aspect. So there's a little bit of letting go in this process. I go on walks and talk to the Creator and really put out my words. I know my words are powerful of what I want and ask for guidance. And I literally set out, try to do it every day, but I really think it's powerful saying what you want out loud. I know it's unnatural for some people and it could be seen as quirky, but to me, I have found it very powerful.

Makes such perfect sense. I've had so many different, mentors in my life, Scott Jackson. He actually just— he passed away this year from cancer, so I'm just saying love to Scott. But he was one of the trainers in North America for, for NLP, the NLP Institute, one of 25. Um, and one thing he said to me was that we are essentially praying all day long, you know, we're speaking to ourselves all day long. But we have this thing in our brain called the critical factor where we can only really process 100 to 200 bits of information per second, but we get over 11 million bits which is crazy to even think about. Yeah. So this critical factor in which we actually can hear the words we're saying and not project our past wounding or negativity or negativity bias onto the words that we're saying to ourselves or that other people are trying to say to us, much like the doctors with their good intentions said to both of you, correct? You're geriatric. This is just the way it is. We speak to ourselves the same way all the time. Yes. Yeah, all the time. How are we supposed to change our vernacular unless we practice the prayer? Correct. How are we supposed to change it? It's not possible unless we practice.

You know what's amazing is when you hear how kids talk about themselves. My daughters will look in the mirror and will be like, I'm so pretty. Yes. And I'm like, yes, you are. And that's what we should all be saying. This is how we were born to be. But then we're programmed to say, like, oh, you know, no, You need to be humble, blah, blah, blah.

In our house, my children are not allowed to say, I can't. And I've done this ever since they could understand words. It's something that I wished my parents would have done for me. Just yesterday, Naya was like, I can't pull this out of the pool. And I'm like, Nova, what do we say in this family? Do we say, I can't? He goes, no, we say, I'm learning. We don't say, I can't. We say, I'm learning. And they're 3 and 5. Imagine their psyche when they get older. They're never going to be one of those people in public that say, "Oh, I'm not worthy. I can't do it." It's just like baked in. I'm baking it in.

Yeah. Got chills.

But unless I am saying that to myself, because, you know, children don't watch what you say. They watch what you do. 100%. They're going to watch how you eat. They're going to watch how you work out. They're going to be like, "Mommy's praying on her walk again." Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Actually, I do it with them so they can see. Yeah.

So this is, this is what I believe is being called forth on planet Earth right now is this shift of when I start making different decisions inside of myself and the way I speak to myself, then I can start reaching for healthier things. For sure. And I can start reaching for healthier people. I really think all these books in the studio, all these guests that I've interviewed, it's like we, we keep coming back to the same thing. And the same thing is what are the words that we're speaking out loud to others and to ourselves? And how do those words create openness and creativity and playfulness and, and success? Mm-hmm. Or how can they be self-deprecating? That just seems to be the common thread with every speaker. Every guest.

Yeah. Agreed. No matter what the topic is. And you just hit on something very crucial. Community, who you hang out with is equally important as how you talk to yourself. So if you're around people who judge, who are negative, and I used to have those friends, it was fun to like go and talk, you know, badly. It sucks your energy down. Oh yeah. And so I'm so intentional now with who I hang out with, 'cause I want to be lifted. I want people who I look up to, who inspire me, who are educated, who pump me up. And so it's equally as important, not only the talk that we do to ourselves to pump ourselves up, but keep company that's really gonna lift you. 'Cause you need a village, no matter what stage of life you're in, you're gonna want that village and choose wisely.

It's important. I feel like there's a— the opening question that came to me this morning that I asked both of you about how birthing a child is so deeply spiritual that we've forgotten about the spirit in the birthing process. It's really birthing a child is spiritual, but it's disguised as biology. Yeah, I'd love to go back. I've never done this before on a podcast. Can we go back to that initial question? And can I ask it both to you again, to get a perspective based on the way in which we've all learned from each other and the audience has learned? I'm gonna ask you again. Birth is a spiritual process disguised in biology. What do you truly believe about that statement that resonates for you?

Gosh, it's the spiritual process that you have to go to, that you are given by God in order to help you find your purpose, in order to help you understand why you're here in this life, truly. And I think for me, it's allowed me to— like, the births and the losses has allowed me to find my true purpose with this company, WeNatal, being able to help so many people and knowing that down the road, we're just in mile 1. Down the road, we're going to be helping so many more people, millions of people. And that's really our vision. And so I'm grateful for all of the little souls in my life. And, and I know that also I'm constantly growing and learning from them.

Yeah, that's really, really profound, especially with all that you've been through, right? The different ups and downs, major ass ups and downs. How do you feel about birth being a spiritual process disguised as biology?

Yeah, it's a miracle for sure. To think about what our bodies do to create this human, birthing them, feeding them, just the whole process to me is a miracle. But it's like you said, it's that constant for me, the mirror and the teachings and my soul's corrections that I see in them. And that's why it's made me such a better person, knowing I am, not just practicing what I preach, but really, Elevating myself to leave a better legacy behind me for them, to teach them by doing, not by preaching. And so it's the biggest gift.

Y'all have done some very deep work, obviously, to be able to run a company and be a mom and also be a human being and have a connection with God and take care of your fitness and learn how to be better at business. There's a lot there. Thank you.

We haven't always— I mean, it's always a learning. We're juggling. Yeah.

So with all this juggling, what I feel, and we can end the podcast here before we have another one. It'd be great to have another one where we really bring in, even honestly, another dad. That'd be such a great podcast. Bring in a dad besides me or bring in a mom besides me.

Or how about 3 months down the road, we'll see what happens with you and your sperm.

Well, I'm sure it's gonna be a lot better. I'm sure it will be. Especially with the wee needle. So my question for you is, at the core of everything that I've been learning in my life And even now, some people call my age a midlife crisis, 46. I reframe it. I think it's a midlife expansion. And Carl Jung, one of the greatest philosophers and psychiatrists of our time, he said that life begins at 40 and the rest is just practice. We're just practicing. We're just gathering information, right? And so, and so if my life start, if my life really started 6 years ago, what do I want the next 46 years of my life to look like? And for me, it's just been this ultimate act of surrender. Can I, instead of sitting here on this podcast and trying to pretend pretend to you ladies or to anybody else that I have it all figured out and have all the answers, which is inherently bullshit. I have some answers, but I'm not— I'm not an MD. Yeah, right. I'm a curious man who just wants to know the truth of things. At the core of all my questions, it's like, can I just live the question? Can I just sit in the question instead of having to have the perfect answer? And I think when we do that, it just relieves us of so much pressure. It's the same pressure that that doctors were telling both of you, like, you better hurry up, you better hurry up. That is not where good things come from. Good things don't come from pressure. Yeah. So if I can sit in the question right now that I want to ask both of you is, what do you believe is being called forth? What question do you believe is being called forth right now when it comes to the sacredness of birth and the work in order to do so? What question do you believe is arising right now, societally? Not that we have to have the answer for, but just that we get to sit in. What is a question we get to sit in?

I think from our perspective and from what we're seeing is like, what are the causes of what we're seeing now with this infertility epidemic? And why is this happening to men, women? What's going on?

Let's sit in that question and see what arises. Yeah. What do you feel? What question is being called forth when it comes to the sacredness of birth and the work in order to do so?

I think for me it's twofold. It's one, we want the men to really treat it as a two-player game. We want really the conversation, not I'm struggling for a year and then maybe we'll look at the husband. I want from day one, us to ask, where are we at? And let's do, let's put our best foot forward because this is the most sacred thing we're ever gonna do in our life. Create a human being. Yeah. So let's not prep for our wedding day, prep for baby showers, prep for nurseries. Let's prep for childbirth, for conceiving. And to me it's like, let's start with the two-player game. Not like, you know, sadly right now, Dr. Natalie Crawford talks a lot about people wait years of infertility and then maybe they'll check. 25% of times they'll check the man, maybe not. So it's bringing that best foot forward from day one. And really, I'd say to the point of the, I truly loved what you said about 40, you know, the warmup act and then the real act. Let's celebrate all of us who wanna have kids and have, you know, whatever it is, careers, families, and prioritizing other things. Versus, you know, dismissing or creating the toxic narrative for them. Let's change the narrative on fertility, on the later in life. It's a different day. Yeah. And we're blessed and we can do it and our bodies are capable. And let's reshift the narrative.

I love both y'all's input because the, the, the crescendo here at the end, y'all, and I know if you just do a quick search anywhere online, you'll see this, like population rates are just like plummeting, falling so fast. And to me, it's not that I want to come at this from fear because I could come at it from fear and that might motivate temporarily for people. Like, how are we— the question I want to sit in is how can I do my part to share energy and messages like this that allow people to ask their own questions as to do they really truly want to bring life into the world? Not because of what Chelsea Handler manipulated them to believe and not because of what pornography does to men, and not because of what plastics and crappy water and de— de— de— terrible soils. I was going to try to say denigrated soils. Terrible soils. Like, there's so many things that are coming at us that we may not even know that we don't know. And that's the question I want to sit in, is how can we continue to breathe life into humanity and do it in a way that is fun and that feels good for us instead of having to do something from a genesis of fear? So I've really enjoyed y'all being here. It's a fun one. Such a fun one.

Really, really enjoyed this. We're so grateful.

You're so welcome. Love partnering with companies like WeNatal. It's on the screen right now, joshtrent.com/wenatal. Um, when you get a subscription, you get free magnesium, which is great. You just gave me some. I'm gonna try some.

Um, speaking of that good sleep that Vita was talking about, it's about quality sleep, not just the quantity, duration. So that magnesium will be a game changer and you'll have to let us know how you I will.

And it's going to be like how I feel because I actually took off my Oura ring, my Ultrahuman ring. It was called— I was checking it way too much.

Me too. I just left it at home. I was like, I told Roni, I need a little break. Sometimes statistics are great, but sometimes you need a break.

Let me just sleep and feel good. Agreed. So anyways, I'll try the magnesium. So it's on screen right now, y'all. I have to say, like, these conversations— I'm not here to preach. They have the power to change someone's life. So many things we've talked about today. Maybe somebody is hearing it for just like the very first time, which is wild for me because I've been in this space for so long. Yeah, I think it's easy for us to be in this echo chamber where it's like, well, we already know that. But my question is, are you actually doing it? Yeah, just because we know something doesn't mean it's always going to be done. So that's my, that's my question for you all to sit in today as we end the podcast is can you sit in the question of do you actually want without anything coming in, without any manipulation, without any of the societal bullshit, Do you actually want to bring life into the world? And if you do, share this podcast, share this podcast with somebody who's been struggling for a long time or who's on baby number 3 or who isn't even on baby number 1 yet. Conversations like this can shift someone's life. That's my intention with having them. The whole point of the podcast is to give people an insight into a way in which they've never thought before, which leads to a different way of being. So thank you all for being here.

Thank you. Thank you for hosting us. Yes, you're welcome.

You're welcome. Y'all share this podcast if you felt it. There's a reason why you felt it. Um, conversations like this stick to our soul for a reason because we're in this age of soundbites where everybody's got like 30 seconds to share and it's like, uh, there's so much pressure. It's the same thing with them doctors, like, get it done, have kids, go on social, 30 seconds, 60 seconds. I love the breath of fresh air that we can have in long-form conversations, and I think that's why people are gravitating so much towards new media. Podcasting is new media. The CNNs, the MSNBCs, like, we're done with that. Yeah, we're all finished with that stuff. This podcast has the ability to change someone's life. So thank you all for being here. Until we see you again, I'm wishing you love, wellness, but most importantly, peace and power. You cannot have power unless it comes from peace. We'll see you next week.