Show notes
This solo episode delves into the profound impact of meditation on fertility and overall health. Highlighting the often overlooked aspect of mindset, Michelle explains how stress and the resulting cortisol levels can negatively affect reproductive health. She shares her personal insights from over 20 years of meditation practice and references ancient wisdom as well as modern research, including Dr. Joe Dispenza's work on the mind-body connection. Key Points Discussed: Introduction to Meditation Mind-Body Connection: Practical Meditation Tips: Overcoming Common Meditation Challenges: Protecting Energy and Boundaries: Meditation Techniques and Benefits: Check out Michelle's latest book here: https://www.michelleoravitz.com/thewayoffertility Follow Michelle on Instagram @thewholesomelotusfertility Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/ for more tips and updates. For more information about Michelle, visitwww.michelleoravitz.com The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/ Transcript: Meditation and fertility [00:00:00] Welcome to the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. I'm your host, Michelle Orvitz, and it's been a while since I have done my solo podcast episode. And today I wanted to talk about the role of meditation and enhancing fertility. And I've talked about meditation before, but it is such an important topic that I want to talk about it again. And so today I'm going to talk about the benefits of mindfulness or just meditation, many different types of meditation. And why it's so important when it comes to overall health and fertility health. It is often one of the things that is really missed and taken off the list. Many people who come to work with me, whether it's online or in person, they share with me that they're eating the right things, taking the right supplements, they did everything. And most of the time when I ask about the mindset aspect, it is not the same. That really [00:01:00]priority. So it is something that I find myself really taking like a session or two just discussing because it's something that can be very abstract. And of course it's invisible. Our mindset, how we think is often something that runs in the background. And it's kind of like this programming that we have that's in the background of our life. And we often don't pay attention to it. We often actually get distracted and don't even realize that our reaction to things that are outside of us. comes from our mindset. And there are many different ways that we can react. There's many different ways that we can take it in. And so there are aspects of our mindset that we don't even realize are happening. And we may not even realize that they can impact our hormones, they can impact our sleep, and they can even impact our cravings and what we [00:02:00] eat. So this is why. I say that although it's invisible and although it is very abstract to really look at, it is so important. And it's probably, if anything, the number one priority that I usually try to address when I work with patients and when I work with my patients. Customers online. So I know that there's also a debate on stress and fertility, and there's always the argument that people at war times are really, really stressful events, get pregnant. And while this is true and a valid argument. That doesn't take away from the fact that when people stress, that increases cortisol, and cortisol is a hormone, and that can impact many different things for both men and women, and we know that men's nervous system can impact male [00:03:00] reproductive health. And for women, cortisol competes with progesterone, and it can impact progesterone. It can also impact sleep, which has a cascade of events. It can impact hormone production and hormone regulation. So all of these things are very important and stress does impact the body and how , the state of mind is impacts physiology. And we're seeing that. And slowly by slowly we're starting to get a bigger picture through modern research on just how much The mind can, in fact, impact the body and impact reproductive health. So these are just some examples, but I also have my theory. So my theory is this. is that we have an incredible intelligence, this divine intelligence that programs our body. We have [00:04:00] blueprints in every single cell in our body, and that is the DNA, and it has instructions, it has information, and it can turn on and off. This is called epigenetics. It can turn on and off to be healthy or not healthy, and it can go into a state of health or dis ease, and And this really is something that happens based on our environment and our environment or our internal environment, our blood can have stress hormones or it can have hormones that are more beneficial for growth. And this responds to our state of mind. So we have this incredible vast intelligence within our body. And my belief after meditating for over 20 years, actually more now at this point consistently, I know that when I've gotten quiet[00:05:00] and this is kind of like something that I know just based on my experience. And this is something that a lot of other meditators will say. And most of the intuitives that I have on the podcast feel that when I ask them, how do you get into your intuition? How do you connect? Most of them will say, or meditate and give yourself that opportunity to connect with that divine intelligence. So this is what it is is that now we are living at a time where we don't have a lot of opportunity to connect with this divine intelligence. This divine intelligence is available to us because we are made with it. So we can connect with it anytime and part of, if you haven't read my book already, the way of fertility, a big part of really the inspiration for that is based on a lot of the ancient wisdom [00:06:00]that is at the heart of Chinese medicine and also Ayurvedic medicine and a lot of like these old medicines and way of life. Thank you. And if we look back to what the ancients told us, they gave us a lot of hints and a lot of amazing, amazing information that is so rich with wisdom. And one of the things that you'll find over and over again is that they all point us to go within, which is really interesting. They always say the answer is within, and there's always kind of like this direction to go within. When you do meditate, it makes a lot of sense, but we're living in a world that doesn't even acknowledge the within anymore because there's so much distraction, there's too much information constantly bombarded with lots of information, the algorithm, all this stuff that just comes [00:07:00] at you, whether you're on YouTube, social media, or just the internet. And while that can be great. And it could be a huge tool. And this is one of the amazing things about technology. I mean, there's a lot of benefits to it. However, there can also be an imbalance with that. And that takes us very, very much away from our wisdom and the quiet within and that part of us that knows, and this is why. I feel like it's so important to really make that space to connect with yourself because your body is so smart. It communicates with you. You can communicate with it. And my philosophy, my own perspective on this, through Chinese medicine is one of the things that I know is that the reason we do acupuncture, the big reason, I mean, obviously there's so many different people with so many different [00:08:00] needs and acupuncture is different based on those needs. However, one of the biggest ways it works is it really creates an opening so that the chi or life force within the body, which is intelligent, by the way, that is able to go into areas that don't have as much, either they're blocked from excess or they're deficient. And they need more of that energy and more of that intelligence and more of that consciousness to fill it because once it does, then the life force comes back and that life force or that area that's, I guess you can say being ignored, because there are blockages or there's some kind of reason why. That life force is not getting to it. Those areas can get that consciousness, that life force. And when you [00:09:00]meditate and you focus even within your body, you can actually bring that life force just with your awareness alone. So you may know that I'm a huge fan of Dr. Joe Dispenza's work. I've been to three of his retreats. Two of them were a week long, incredible, incredible retreats. And I see people overcoming major terminal diseases just from his retreats alone and also the practices that he shares. And one of the practice is. really paying attention and bringing your focus into the energy centers of the body and he'll go through the different energy centers, which in ancient times were called chakras and paying attention to them, just bringing your awareness to them brings life. So it kind of is like [00:10:00] light, almost like the light of your consciousness. You can imagine is like the light of the sun and infusing a plant or some life force living thing. And, I think it's pretty cool because a lot of what he does and a lot of the work that he does and the meditations that he does, he actually has a research team that comes with him and they research and study. probably close to half of the participants at the retreats and they see how the meditations impact them and how they literally shift and change their way of being. And I remember one of the things that he talked about was That when you're laying down, he has you laying down after the meditation and he said it's really good for regulating the nervous system. And when you're laying down, he said you're able to absorb almost like how hypnosis works and you're able to gain [00:11:00] suggestion or like get a programming. But he said, it's not a programming of anything that anybody's saying. It's connecting to this vast intelligence. that we're all a part of, that we all come from. He talks about it as the quantum field of infinite possibilities, but this intelligence, this coherence that starts to happen. And the ancient used to look at it as the yin and yang balance. They looked at the harmony between the elements. They described it in different ways, but they're all pointing to the same thing. And the bottom line is, is that we are part of this vast Intricate, incredible intelligence. And when it's healthy, when it's working optimally, it is working with coherence. And when it's not. It's moving away from that. There's less consciousness. There's less intelligence. There's a blockage to that intelligence. And you can say that's like a blockage to the chi because the chi is not just life force. Life force cannot be without the intelligence [00:12:00] that's running it. So when you are not connected to that, and that's where a lot of people have listened to some gurus talking about meditation, it's really connecting to cosmic energy, cosmic intelligence. There's a difference between the energy that you get when you're sleeping, although very important. And there's a difference between the energy you get when you're meditating and connecting with cosmic intelligence. And so that cosmic intelligence feeds your body. And when it feeds your body, it gets you closer to better health. And as we know, fertility health relies on good health, and you need to have an overflowing amount. of nutrients, energy, chi, blood, really an overflowing. Why? Because in order to sustain another extra life, you need that overflowing of energy. When you have difficult emotions [00:13:00] and you are experiencing things that are very draining, which often can be counteracted with meditation, because meditation helps you even out that energy so that When triggers come, they will not zap you as much as they would if you're not energy consolidated, which is what happens with meditation. This is kind of part of meditation. It's a side effect, but a good side effect, one that is welcome. And that one that feels really good when you're actually getting that. So when you're able to do that and it protects you, it almost has a layer of energetic protection when you are experiencing a challenge, you're able to regulate and come back to yourself faster. And I'll tell you one thing, emotions when we're talking about an overflow of energy and all the things that we really need, because reproduction is so energy consuming. When you do experience really difficult emotions, those things [00:14:00] can really zap you out. Your energy and we've all experienced those times where either we deal with drama or something comes up or a really difficult exchange We at the end of the day are so drained And so that's why it's very very important to protect your energy Part of it and this is kind of a side note is boundaries. Honestly, like Cutting out maybe temporarily certain relationships that are too draining. This is something that you need to protect. You need to protect your fertility journey. Like going through this is very, very taxing as it is. So it's important really to work on your energy. And one of the biggest key ways really is meditation is really allowing yourself to experience the emotions that come up, sit with it. Feel it. And I will say some of the most common things that cause resistance in a lot of my patients or my clients. These are [00:15:00] the common things that I hear when it comes to meditation and after I suggest meditation. The first one is, I just can't sit still. Well, I have news for you. Nobody can, it's because the mind is called a monkey mind for a reason, because it goes from, it's like a swinging from one branch to the next, to the next, to the next, and that is your thoughts. So that is the typical nature of everybody's mind. It goes from one thought to the next. That's normal. So you're not really meant to stop thinking when you're meditating. You are building a muscle of your attention so that when you do have thoughts, you become aware of them. You catch yourself. You don't judge yourself. You don't say, no, no, I shouldn't be thinking, or no, no, this is bad. You just observe it. neutrally and then go back to your breath or go back to the mantra, whatever it is that you're anchoring in. You repeat that over and over and over[00:16:00] again until you can start shifting that habit of getting lost in the thought. When that happens, naturally you will learn to become more present when you are facing a trigger. So a trigger comes up. You feel it, but then your awareness becomes stronger than the trigger because you're meditating, you're training your mind to notice things. And that is when it doesn't have a hold on you. That's why some people can really get sucked into that trigger and then other people can get into the state of the executive mind function and not get triggered emotionally. When we get triggered emotionally, which does happen and there's nothing wrong with that. But when we get triggered emotionally, those are those moments that zap us the most. So this is really about empowering your mind so that you're able to consolidate your energy as much as possible,[00:17:00] because ultimately that is going to benefit you overall if you're on the fertility journey. Another common block I see for people who are first trying to meditate is that they believe that it doesn't do anything. And, and that's another mind perspective. So the mind will give you thoughts about things to do. To deter you. It's almost like a little trickster, that freaking mind. It'll give you thoughts and it will plant ideas and you can either bite and take them as fact or realize, wait, that's just the thought. Let me keep doing this to explore. And so your mind is going to convince you that you're not doing anything, or your mind is going to convince you that you need to do a lot more or you're going to get bored. Here's the thing. If you're used to being on a certain pace all the time, it's going to feel strange at [00:18:00] first to shift that piece and get to a receptive yin state. So the yin and the yang. Yang is pretty much. Like the majority of everything right now in our world, it's just, everything's go, go, go. And too much of that burns out energy. So we need to go back to the yin. Meditation is a more yin, receptive state. And doing that, shifting gears is the most uncomfortable thing. Shifting realities, shifting gears, shifting rhythms can be very uncomfortable if you prepare yourself for that in the beginning of your meditation practice, meaning when you first start to slow down, meditate and create a practice routine, then you know that that discomfort will not last forever. When you know that it's temporary and it's just shifting of gears, it's the turbulence that happens when you're shifting levels of consciousness. When you prepare yourself [00:19:00] for that and you just know that, then it doesn't feel as difficult. And another thing that can really help with that is becoming aware of that. Hey, That's interesting with curiosity, kind of paying attention. I feel a little agitated. What does that look like? What does that feel like? So instead of going to the thoughts of that, start feeling what your body feels like when you're experiencing that become observant of that. It's like looking at a picture upside down. You're starting to notice different things. You look at the shapes. So you're breaking down the experience of what that feels like. So that it's not so scary and your knee jerk reaction is not going to be to resist it because ultimately that's what it does. Your mind will have you resist things or get too attached and that's the push and pull that happens that causes us to have suffering. This is what Buddha taught about. about how desire, like strong desire or strong resistance are the two [00:20:00]things that cause us to suffer because we're basically saying no to now, like what's happening right now shouldn't be, it's either missing something or it has too much of something. And meditation gets us into the neutrality of seeing things as they are without judgment. And so that we become more empowered In this moment. So ultimately a lot of what I like to put on the podcast are things that are empowering and my top, top, top thing would be start a meditation practice daily. So one of the ways you can start a meditation practice that will be, in my opinion, a more successful way to start is to start out with just a few minutes a day. what happens is you're not going to give yourself too big of a task of meditation for too long. You just start with a couple of minutes a day. And even with like [00:21:00] five minutes a day, you're still going to get benefits just even with five minutes a day, allowing yourself The opportunity to connect with that divine intelligence, five minutes a day in the beginning. And the thing is, anybody can come up with five minutes a day. Even if you're extremely busy, you can wake up five minutes earlier and just meditate in the morning. So it's all a perspective. So what happens is when you do five minutes a day, or even a short amount of time daily, every single day, repeatedly, your mind will realize and come to terms with the fact that you now have a new habit and five minutes a day is so doable that you can make it easy to repeat something over and over and over again if it's very short and then your mind will accept it as this new thing. Once your mind starts to accept it and it becomes more natural and intuitive for you to do, [00:22:00]then You're going to even feel naturally. inclined to increase the time because your mind will start to settle over time and then it's going to want to have more of that quiet and crave it at times. And you're going to feel that it feels really good because it's going to make you feel more clear in your mind. And you'll find that it also saves you time. So even though you're taking time out to do it, your mind will start to work more efficiently. You'll be more clear minded and more intuitive and more sharp with your work that things that usually took you longer you'll find start to get done faster. So some of the things that I would suggest if you are new to meditation that are really, really simple is every day find one specific spot in your house. that feels comfortable. It could be a room. It could be something that you're a room that[00:23:00] you're in, but maybe a little corner where you can sit down on a cushion or you could sit down on a chair or a couch anywhere that feels comfortable and quiet. And you do want to set it up so that you're not going to get interrupted for the time that you're meditating. My suggestion is this, do not do this on your bed because naturally your body associates your bed with sleep and you will fall asleep. Don't get discouraged if you do fall asleep. Sometimes people nod off and then they come back. That's okay. That's just your nervous system regulating. What I do suggest is regardless if you cross your legs or if you have your feet on the floor, always have your spine erect so that you're not laying down. I also suggest having your hands on your knees and the palms facing up. receiving energy. And you could choose to focus on a couple of different things. You can choose to focus on your breath. [00:24:00] You could choose to repeat a mantra in your mind, , and you can look up seed mantras, Which are ancient Sanskrit mantras that have an energetic frequency, even if you're thinking them in your mind. Or you could literally start to focus on the sensations in your body and scan your body and all the sensations that you're feeling at the present moment. And really bring yourself back to your body and seeing how certain thoughts impact your body and where you're feeling energetically certain emotions, because that brings more consciousness to that area. You could literally spend a whole five minutes just focusing on the uterus and focusing on that area and really, really putting your consciousness into that. The bottom line is you are finding different ways to anchor yourself into the present moment. So whether it's body sensations or a mantra or just focusing on the breath, all of those things are happening in the now. So you're training [00:25:00] your mind to focus on the present moment. That being said, you're going to find yourself wandering off and that's perfectly normal and okay. It's part of what you're doing. You're training your consciousness to catch yourself. You're catching and then you're bringing back, catching, bringing back. So you catch yourself going off, you bring yourself back to whatever it is that anchors you in the present moment. If you find yourself incredibly uncomfortable, do not let that discourage you. Keep going. It's one of those things. When you first start working out, you're not going to feel really easy. lifting those weights. It's going to be uncomfortable. It's going to be painful. It's going to make you sore for the next couple of days. It's the same thing. Growth and shifts and changes don't happen easily. There's got to be some kind of discomfort sometimes, and that's okay. It's being comfortable with the discomfort because If you're allowing yourself to be comfortable with [00:26:00] being uncomfortable, eventually you're going to find that the things that make you uncomfortable in life will not have a hold on you as much. And you're going to feel more smooth and easy with your energy overall. And I can say for me personally, meditation has changed my life and I speak to a lot of patients and clients and I see how it impacts them and also impacts their fertility and their menstrual cycle. It's incredible. Meditation is an incredible, incredible free medicine that we all have access to and it is one of the most overlooked things. Although now, I guess it's becoming a little bit more of a thing of recent times, but I definitely highly suggest if that is something that you've not looked into or if that's something that you thought You just are not meant to do. I really hope that this episode [00:27:00] Shifted your perspective on that and if you have any questions, you can always DM me on Instagram. I'm always there I'm pretty quick to respond Most times if I can and my handle is at the wholesome lotus fertility So I really hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope you have an amazing day.