Your pelvic region is home to your life force, creative power, and intuitive wisdom. Yet we have never been taught how to truly listen to what this part of our body has to say. On this episode of the podcast, I discuss the importance of having a healthy connection with your womb and pelvic region and I highlight a number of reasons why I feel we’ve become so disconnected from the womb in the first place. I also share two techniques that you can use to start connecting to your womb again and to heal any of the traumas that you may have stored there. It’s the number one self-care practice I’d advise anyone to develop.

You can download my free meditation here: https://www.thatfertilefeeling.com/freebies

I recently found myself in a state of intense emotional turmoil. My clinic called me to schedule an intake for our next frozen embryo transfer and it just triggered a sandstorm of feelings of grief, fear and resistance - all of them boiling down to the feeling that I might be blocking myself from getting pregnant. On this episode of the podcast, I discuss what I did to get myself out of that black hole again. In particular, I focus on the importance of developing a self-care routine, why affirmations don’t work for me, and how you always need to start with meeting yourself where you are right now. I also share the visualization technique I used to get to the root of my feelings and tap into my subconscious to figure out what it is I truly need.

Top quotes:

“Your self-care regimen is so important when you’re facing difficult situations in life.” - Françoise Molenaar

“I saw how most of these thoughts came down to me thinking I have control over the outcome of this process” - Françoise Molenaar

“Finding balance is not about fixing yourself, about becoming emotionally perfect. It’s about allowing life to have its ups and down and to be able to bring yourself back to your center when you find yourself out of balance” - Françoise Molenaar

Book recommendation: “It’s not your money” by Tosha Silver

Connecting to your cycle and your womb are key tools to access your body’s inner wisdom. On this episode of the podcast, I talk to yoga teacher and fellow fertility warrior Viki Lefler about her experiences with cycle & moon tracking and womb healing. We discuss how our bodies often carry the stories, experiences and traumas that were passed on through our mothers and grandmothers - and how we can heal those by paying close attention to what is going on inside us. Viki provides some practical advice on how you can start monitoring your cycle and using it to better understand your inner world and needs. We also discuss how Viki herself deals with the long waiting process.

Top quotes:

“With the moon journaling, I try to connect the phase of my cycle to the phase of the moon. When I start a new cycle, I read what happened during previous cycles. I try to find connection points. I share this with my partner too, so that he understands where I’m at right now (and that he shouldn’t talk to me ;-).” - Viki Lefler

“When I look at my own family line, at the women who’ve lost babies, who’ve lost children, who’ve had traumatic births. Once I started looking inside of me, I saw that I was carrying all these stories with me.” - Françoise Molenaar

“I like to think that our child is already with us and that he is teaching us lessons. I’m taking it [the waiting] as an opportunity to become ready, to welcome this child and to heal whatever I can inside of me.” - Viki Lefler

“I want to become a mother. But waiting only for that is not life.” - Viki Lefler

About Viki Lefler:

Hi, I'm Viki, and we are trying to become parents with my husband. I had always thought this would be super easy, but life offered me something else: A lesson to surrender.

During these past years, while we’ve been trying, I have built a better connection with myself, my femininity, and my sacred creative source; my womb.

I started moon journaling to help me find emotional patterns, organize my thoughts, and allow myself to reflect on my emotions.

With my Instagram page, I lend my hand to those who are also struggling with infertility issues and decide to dive deep into their Underworld to heal their roots. You can follow me here: https://www.instagram.com/hermoon.herblood/

Getting pregnant is one of those processes in life that, ultimately, you have no control over. That can be a very hard pill to swallow, as we've been taught from a young age that if we just work hard enough, we'll be able to achieve anything we want. On this episode of the podcast, I talk to stress and vitality expert Bas Snippert on how to deal with the uncertainty and stress that this lack of control creates. Based on the latest insights in neuroscience, Bas shares with us a very concrete exercise you can do to regain a sense of control in your life and tap into your inner resources. We also discuss how to deal with the grief you may encounter throughout your fertility journey.

Top quotes:

“The common denominator of things like fertility issues, burnout, or trauma is the loss of control. Ultimately, our biology and our brain try to minimize uncertainty. That’s the whole game we’re in. When we start losing control, that’s the moment that stress starts to set in.” - Bas Snippert

“You can find the frequencies within yourself where you feel a little bit better and that are always available to you.” - Françoise Molenaar

“Explore this question: what’s most scary for you about grief (or sadness)? See what comes up. That will usually transform it. If you truly grieve something, it won’t be there 24/7 and you will see it transform.” - Bas Snippert

Book recommendation: “Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma” by Peter Levine

Article recommendation: Eric L. Garland, Norman A. Farb, Philippe R. Goldin & Barbara L. Fredrickson (2015) Mindfulness Broadens Awareness and Builds Eudaimonic Meaning: A Process Model of Mindful Positive Emotion Regulation, Psychological Inquiry, 26:4, 293-314.

About Bas Snippert:

Bas Snippert, MSc, is a Dutch expert in stress and vitality. He is a published author in The Netherlands with articles in the Journal for Coaching and his book De Vitaliteitrevolutie (The Vitality Revolution). Bas works as Head of Learning & Development at the Dutch Centre for Vitality, where he provides coaching, consultancy and training for teams that seek more resilience, vitality and engagement. Bas also runs a part-time private practice for people seeking resolution after traumatic stress and burn-out.

In his work Bas combines cutting-edge methods like Somatic Experiencing and the NeuroAffective Relational Model, with insights from academic domains such as positive psychology, interpersonal neurobiology and systems sciences. He also works internationally as a mentor in the Swiss NeuroSystemics CARE program and Bas regularly deepens his mindfulness practice on retreat in Plum Village, the Zen monastry based in the South of France, founded by Zen master, writer and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh.

When getting pregnant doesn’t come easily, it can be very hard to deal with the feelings of uncertainty and desperation this creates. We’ve never really been taught how to deal with situations that are beyond our control. On this episode of the podcast, I share with you how I learned to surrender to my fertility journey and all the bumps that I encountered along the way. I discuss the importance of finding (spiritual) role models that show you a different mode of being (in my case - the goddess Kali), how you can develop a surrender practice, and I explain a little bit of the science behind surrendering as a new way of living.

Top quotes:

“A really strong message in our western culture is that when you want something really badly in life, you just have to work really hard to get it. But we can question that message.”

“It’s about recognizing where you are right now and not fighting it. It’s about admitting ‘this is really hard. I’m in so much pain right now and I don’t know how to carry this burden.”

“I came out of this health crisis with the tools to really invest in self-care. I started listening to my body, I started understanding that I’m not superwoman and that I needed to protect myself and look after myself. That meant that when I started IVF, everything was in place to give it the space in my life it deserved.”

Book recommendation: “It’s not your money” by Tosha Silver

Has your love life suffered because of your fertility issues? Then you are definitely not alone. On this episode, I talk to intimacy coach Diana Ciolca about how to reclaim passion in your relationship when your attempts at conception have started to dull things down. We discuss how you can stop treating your body as a baby making instrument, how to rekindle desire and love making, and how to deal with any physical pain you may be facing.

Top quotes:

“Drop into what you actually want. How do you want to relate to your partner? It starts with the desire of having more intimacy, more connection. How do you want to experience your intimate life? Having that clarity is the starting point.” - Diana Ciolca

“S#x starts way before you go into the bedroom with your partner. It is really crucial to feel relaxed, to have a life that actually accommodates you. That you have rituals and routines in place so that you feel relaxed, so that you feel taken care of, that you give yourself pleasure in other ways (other than s#x) and actually that the s#x that you are having feels pleasurable to you.” - Diana Ciolca

“It’s almost like a complete reimagining of what intimacy looks like. It can be that your fertility journey creates an entry point for a whole new way of lovemaking that’s very much based on pleasure rather than the traditional ‘penetration and that’s it’.” - Françoise Molenaar

“Our bodies and nervous systems don’t know how to make a distinction between sadness and pleasure. If you shut down your sadness, it is the same system that shuts down your pleasure and joy. You cannot choose. Numbness covers everything.” - Diana Ciolca

About Diana Ciolca:

Diana is an intimacy coach who helps female leaders live a life of pleasure & abundance in money, love, & relationships. You can find out more about her work here: https://www.dianaciolca.com She’s also on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedianaciolca/

When you've been trying to conceive for a while, it may feel like you will never be truly happy again until you have a baby. On this episode, Instagram reel-star Abbie Clark and I discuss how you can move out of this mindset and build an inner reservoir of resilience. We focus on the importance of investing time and energy in things you are passionate about, developing a practice of gratitude and surrender, and how the lessons that you learn throughout your fertility journey will ultimately make you a better parent and human.

Top quotes:

“I‘d kinda forgotten about any other goals or passions. It was like my life was on hold until I got pregnant. I’m so grateful for my husband who sat me down for a loving but frank conversation and said ‘you need to have things that you are working towards and that you care about’. It was a huge wake-up call for me.” - Abbie Clark

“For me, prayer is that subjection of your ego, your own will, to the divine, to life, and saying ‘I don’t know, I’m having a hard time, can you show me the way, can you help me surrender’.” - Françoise Molenaar

“You are going to be such a better parent, mother, wife and all of those things if you don’t allow yourself to get lost in the process of trying to conceive. And your kids are going to look up to you for that some day. I want to be an example for them on how to get through difficult things in life. Of not allowing life and trials to beat you down.” - Abbie Clark

Book recommendation: “Wild Power” by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer. www.redschool.net/product/wild-power-book

About Abbie Clark:

Abbie’s mission is to create joy while trying to conceive, such as by creating relatable reels for “mamas in waiting”. You can follow her on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/abbiegclark/.

In this episode of That Fertile Feeling – The Podcast, I talk to two women who I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in my women’s circles. Kyara Skura is my long-time friend and co-host of the ‘Shakti circles’: a place where women meet to unwind and invest in self-care. Ilse was one of the participants of my first group for women facing unwanted childlessness. We discuss what women’s circles are and why they are such an amazing support tool when you’re dealing with fertility issues. In particular, we focus on how they create a safe space for you to (re)connect with & process your feelings, how they help you gain new perspectives on your situation, how they help you move you from doing to being, and how they make you feel supported.

Top quotes:

“My mother blessing circle was better than my wedding” - Kyara Skura

“Participating in the circle helped me start to enjoy life again. You brought me back in touch with my feelings” - Ilse

“Feelings can sometimes be like this nagging sensation in the background. But when you give them attention, they become much lighter” - Françoise Molenaar

About my women’s circles:

I’m continuously organizing new 3-month groups for women facing fertility issues. You can find more information on https://www.thatfertilefeeling.com/sister-sessions. I'm starting a new group on March 2.

Kyara Skura (https://www.instagram.com/kyara_skura/) and myself also organize sister circles (in Dutch) for women who feel they’ve lost their connection to themselves. You can find more information here: https://www.shaktisisters.org/

In this episode of That Fertile Feeling – The Podcast, I talk to women’s coach Jessica Fawn on how you can stop seeing your body as just an instrument when #TTC and how you can find back the love for your body. We also discuss how you can create a more feminine, yin approach to getting pregnant, how to deal with stress, trauma, and grief, and how you can use cycle tracking to improve your quality of life.

Trigger warning: we briefly touch on the topic of abortion as well

Top quotes:

"In our western, patriarchal culture we have very few female examples of how to relate to ourselves in a loving way. We can find these examples in other cultures and religious traditions.” – Jessica Fawn

“It is all about learning to feel what is right for you right now” – Françoise Molenaar

“There is a heart behind your heart. It is calm and untouched by the chaos of human life.” – Jessica Fawn

Book recommendation: “Wild Power” by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer. https://www.redschool.net/product/wild-power-book

About Jessica Fawn:

Jessica is a coach and teacher, specialized in goddess tantra and women's self-development. For the past years she has guided hundreds of women through group programs, workshops and private coaching. Her life's purpose is to bring women back to a state of softness and freedom. You can find out more about her work here: https://www.jessica-fawn.com/ She’s also on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessicafawn_/

In this episode of That Fertile Feeling – The Podcast, I talk to perfectionism coach Evelien Bijl. Evelien sheds her light on how you can let go off perfectionism about your fertility regimen. We also discuss how you can ease up on emotional perfectionism, i.e. the idea that you’re not allowed to feel fear or stress because that might harm your chances of conceiving. In addition, Evelien provides some pointers on how to deal with the stress that your fertility journey may have put on your intimate relationship(s). Enjoy!

Top quotes:

“This might be a long journey – how do you want to feel along the way?” – Evelien Bijl

“Your future child can already be a teacher here” – Françoise Molenaar

“Ask yourself: Am I doing these things because I want to take care of myself or am I doing them out of a feeling of fear or scarcity” – Evelien Bijl

About Evelien Bijl:

Evellien is a perfectionism coach. You can find more about her work (in Dutch) at: www.doelgerichtecoaching.nl. If you want to sign up for her 5-day challenge, which starts on Monday Feb. 14, follow this link: https://evelienbijl.lpages.co/productief-zonder-perfectionisme-challenge/. You can also follow her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/evelien_bijl/