The Womb Room Podcast (Qiddist Ashé)

What if everything you've been told about anemia is a scam?

Chances are, if you're a bleeding woman, you've likely either been told you have "anemia," or that you need to be concerned about getting enough iron in your diet. 

But if we're all so concerned about getting enough iron, why is everyone still anemic?

In today's episode, we're busting some major myths about iron and anemia in female health, with my guest Loren De La Cruz, functional nutritional therapy practitioner, preconception specialist and owner of Innate Functional Nutrition.

We dive into the truth about iron in the female body and what's really causing symptoms of anemia (hint -- it's probably not what your doctor told you). 

We get into:

• Loren's journey from veganism and birth control into fertilty work and pro-metabolic nutrition
• What "iron deficiency anemia" actually is, and what it's not
• Why symptoms of iron deficiency in the blood often mean iron OVERLOAD
• Why more iron might be hurting, rather than helping, your health
• The connection between iron overload, pathogenic infections, and fatigue
• The importance of mineral balance, and why copper is critical 
• Key foods to support our body's ability to use iron
• If you choose to get bloodwork, the type of testing that actually tells you about true iron usage (it's not ferritin!)
• Practical steps you can take to nourish your fertile health

Check out Loren's Conscious Conception course and follow her beautiful Instagram for more pro-metabolic nourishment

Get the earlybird pricing for Confessions of a Nourished Woman (only $97 until April 17!)

Apply to Sovereign Womban, a year-long container in The Womb Room for female health & sovereignty

Resources mentioned: Jolene Brighten (post birth control syndrome);  Morley Robbins and the Root Cause Protocol

Our connective tissue is a conduit for quantum information, emotional patterns, and powerful stories -- and unearthing them can hold the keys to our healing. I talk with Lindsay Courcelle, a Myofascial Release therapist and Holistic Pelvic CareTM practitioner, who is passionate about helping women to transmute their traumas and liberate their bodies through myofascial and energetic bodywork. 

We explore:

• How our connective tissue holds physical and emotional trauma
• The solidifying of our tissues as emotional protection 
• The wisdom and signficance of our injuries and how they can lead us to deeper healing
• The importance of tending our womb and pelvic fascia 
• The unseen impact of scar tissue across the body 
• How myofascial release differs from other modalities
• Bodily wisdom stories from both of us, our bodies, and our work with other women
• How myofascial allows us to drop into our intuitive brain, where healing and change happens
• Breast care and relationship, and the power of myofascial release to alter cells

Lindsay has just launched an Internal Myofascial Pelvic Care Masterclass for women to learn how to tend to the fluidity of their pelvic bowl through guided hands-in touch!

For Womb Room listeners, the Internal Myofascial workshop will be offered at a significant discount--$33 instead of $99. Coupon code: wombroom

Lindsay's Website  

Lindsay on Instagram

Resources Mentioned:

Dr. Catherine Clinton - Quantum Biology

Ellen Heed - Scar Tissue Remediation

Martin Beaudoin - pelvic bodywork and training

John Barnes Myofascial Release 

Amber Magnolia Hill’s Medicine Stories Podcast with Lindsay (more fascia info here!)

The Resonance Effect: How Frequency Specific Microcurrent is Changing Medicine by Carolyn McMakin (Book)

Is there space for nuance in a time of war? How do we orient when we hold both colonizer & colonized? What's being missed energetically in the cultural and historical context of this war? 

These are questions we (Qiddist and Maura) have been pondering as we metabolize the genocide(s) we are witnessing globally, and in particular of Palestine. 

We aren't experts, but we are observers -- in response to the yearning for deeper conversation in our community, we share this conversation with humility and curiosity. We explore topics including:

• the primal desire to be "good and right," and why we must contend with being "bad and wrong"
• making sense of our own complicity 
• unearthing the war(s) inside ourselves
• how we might move from reaction to right action 
• why we're pausing for nuance, even (especially?) in times of war 
• some of the historical pieces that we see missing from public conversation 
• what are the options if the "master's tools won't dismantle the master's house"
• what it might look like to move from liberation, not just towards it
• why the internal investigation of the war inside of us is a necessary step to external change

BEYOND BOUNDARIES: An interactive skill-share for a new paradigm of embodied boundaries, in service to inner union. This Friday, replay available.

WOMB ROOM COMMUNITY MEMBERSHIP: root-cause body literacy, matriarchal medicine, and energetic skill-building.

• The 3 "Golden Opportunities" in the womb continuum, and the practice of turning inward
• How Chinese Medicine approaches the perimenopause time
• Hormonal shifts in this season, and why it's not just about estrogen
• Simple ways to support our bodies in and for this phase
• Why your 20s and 30s matter for perimenopause and menopause

Kris's Instagram

How many women do you know that have a fear (or an experience) of being kicked out of, ostracized from, or canceled by a community they're a part of? Whether it's part of a social justice movement or in an online spiritual community, we live in a time where people are easily disposable, and where we have little capacity for conflict, mess, or nuance. In this conversation, Maura and Qiddist talk about the energetics of what we're seeing in our in person and online communities, and pathways that move us out of the "either/or" paradigm of "sovereignty" vs the collective. We explore:

• the disposability of people in our movements, cancel culture, and in women’s communities
• How misogyny isn't just about women, it's about YIN energy, -- and what "yin reverence" means
• Our cultural commitment to preference over truth
• What our intolerance for conflict has to do with misogyny 
• The connection between how we regard mess, and how we regard the earth
• Why we don’t want people to come to The Womb Room for belonging
• how the "sovereignty" movement and our collectivest culture seem different, but are often doing the same thing 
• what sovereignty and interdependence can look like, together. 

SAVE YOUR SPOT IN THE FREE CLASS: WATERING OUR ROOTS - REWRITING SOVEREIGNTY AND INTERDEPENDENCE

JOIN THE WOMB ROOM COMMUNITY MEMBERSHIP 

LEARN MORE ABOUT CHRYSALIS - ENROLLMENT CLOSES 4/22

If you've been exploring female hormone health, you've probably heard the term "estrogen dominance." It's one of the most common hormonal imbalances, and a factor in heavy periods, menstrual cramps, breast tenderness, PMS symptoms, and even cysts, fibroids and endometriosis.

So, how to we support our innate hormonal brilliance? Today, I'm sharing a lesson from The Womb Room Body Literacy library -- where we have tons of deep dives on all sorts of female health topics! We'll unpack:

• the 2 types of estrogen dominance
• what our metabolism has to do with hormone health
• why estrogen is so important, and how we can support it
• the connection to our liver and digestion
• practices, foods and rituals to support our hormonal vitality

Supplements mentioned:

Get 10% off Ancestral Supplements' grass-fed liver capsules with the code TRIBE10

Great Lakes Wellness Collagen and Gelatin

Ancient Minerals Topical Magnesium

Apply to join us in The Womb Room!

Intro and outro song "Cicada," by AnAkA. 

When I say "tips for gut health," you might expect to hear about cutting dairy, or maybe adding bone broth, or taking supplements. But what if healing our gut has more to do with having our feet on the earth, slowing down, aand tending to our nervous system? 

In my conversation with Madisen of The Gut Goddess, we get into the big picture of gut healing, reversing food sensitivies, and restoring our digestive function without restrictive diets. 

Madisen works exclusively with people 1-1 who are ready for this gentle and powerful approach -- check out her work and the Nourished Babes podcast here!

Want more from Qiddist on nourishment for the female body? Join the Womb Room Community Membership!

Ready for a deep dive into radical female health and spiritual sovereignty? Our foundational year-long container, SOVEREIGN WOMBAN, begins in November. Learn more and enroll here.

If you've been curious about womb steaming but haven't been sure where to start or how it works, today's episode is for you. I'm sharing a conversation with Chantal Blake, Womb Wellness Educator and Womb Steaming Therapist.  She helps women "break cycles of painful periods and hormonal chaos, prepare for healthy conception, recover after birth, and raise daughters who love their periods through the tools of body literacy, cycle syncing, and traditional self-care."

We talk about: 

• Chantal's journey as mother and how steaming supported her from preconception, to miscarriage, to birth postpartum
• Pregnancy loss outside of the medicial system
• The ways postpartum steaming can support healing
• Steaming for trauma resolution and how the structural shifts the emotional
• Ancestral remembering and different lineages through steaming

Learn more from Chantal through her education and 1:1 consultations on IG and FB  @honoured.womb 

Want to begin your womb steaming practice at home? Download my free Sovereign Womb Steaming Guide here !

For more cyclical womb care practices, and radical body literacy education, you'll find so much more in our Womb Room Community Membership !

Ready to dive deep into the energetics of your womb and your live? SOVEREIGN WOMBAN is a year-long, intimate container for female health and energetic sovereignty -- the foundations of living in your truest power.

Keli Garza's Steamy Chick

What is matriarchy, why do we need it, and how do we create it? 

Today we dive into the skills we need to cultivate matriarchy in our communities, with guest  Maura Sternberg. 

We explore how we orient to personal and collective apocalypse, why mothers and children need to be at the center of our social structures, and how we can begin to create the worlds we want to see.

Maura is a kitchen witch, herbalist, spirit medicine holder, and sister. She sits at the feet of her teachers Rachelle Garcia Seliga, Susun Weed, Everest Asher, Perri Chase, among others. Her most fervent wish is that her work serves as ecstatic and embodied liberation, for herself, her community, her ancestors, and her FirstMother, Earth. 

Wondering if The Womb Room Membership is for you, and want to come hang out with us?

Maura and I are hosting a FREE workshop series this month called Womb Worship, and you're invited! Experience a taste of what we're up to in 3 in-depth, highly interactive workshops, and build your foundational womb sovereignty skills. Sign up now here!

Join The Womb Room Membership Community!

Download our free resources for womb healing

Grief lives in the body. This is a simple truth, and yet in our culture, our collective conversation around grief is often focused on the mind, on “moving on,” and on processing in isolation. So how do we truly embody our grief, and stay open-hearted to the gifts it brings? 

Today, I share my conversation with Grace Harman, an embodied grief guide (and member of The Womb Room!) Grace brings her experience as a dance/movement therapist, as well as her own experience of grieving her mother, into her work with people as they remember how to bring the body back into grieving and, by extension, into fully living. We talk about the wisdom of our embodied grief, including:

• Why grief needs witnessing and moving out of our isolated grief culture
• Grace’s journey through grieving the death of her mother, and becoming an embodied grief guide
• Experiencing grief as a portal to spiritual and creative opening
• How we are held by our ancestors in our grief
• Being with grief as a healing gift to our lineages (mentioned: The Nap Ministry, Tricia Hersey)
• How not being in control can actually be a source of power

May our conversation nourish you and open your heart to the medicine of your grief. 

To connect with Grace, find her on her website and follow her on Instagram

Intro and outro music: “Cicada” by AnAkA. Thank you sister!

Save your spot in the free Sovereign Womb Masterclass: Opening to the Path of Your Power

Apply to join The Womb Room, a year long container for womb sovereignty

In today’s podcast conversation, I talk with my friend and fellow birthkeeper, Saima Kara, about the brilliance pf physiological birth, and her experience shifting from hospital doula work to being a birth keeper outside of the medical system. 

Saima is a radical birthkeeper in the UK, holistic childbirth education teacher, and a powerful voice and leader in the world of supporting women through physiological birth.

If you’re even considering being pregnant one day in the future, or if you’ve gone through the birth portal before  and are still unpacking your experience, this one’s for you!

We get into:

• How and why Saima transitioned from mainstream  doula work to serving women outside of the system, and what it took for her to speak her truth
• The role of physiologic birth, and how it is brilliantly designed to protect the safety of mother-baby
• The pitfalls of the obstetrical birth model, and unpacking the routine interventions like ultrasounds, inductions, and giving birth on your back
• The role of evidence, and how our hormonal physiology supports keeping birth undisturbed 
• How connecting with our cycles is birth preparation in itself!

Join Saima's Radical Birth Education Program (begins Jan 23!)

Follow Saima's instagram

Join us both in The Womb Room

Have you ever explored how plant allies can be part of your cervical healing journey? In today's episode, I share my conversation with fellow herbalist and cervix-lover, Allie Cuozzo, about the science and magic of herbal medicine specifically for tending to cervical dysplasia.

We get into:

• Reframing cervical "abnormalities" (8:30)
• Allie's journey to the plant path and how a brain injury led her deeper into womb work (15:00)
• The body systems involved in cervical health (38:00)
• 3 favorite plant allies and usages for cervical dysplasia (53:00)
• The spirit of "clear margins" and the connection to cervix and boundaries (63:45)

Check out Allie's herbal practice, Earth Allies, to work 1:1 with her / her team, and check out her virtual workshops in January!

The poet Allie references, Ocean Vuong

One study on anti-cancer properties of Bloodroot (Sanguinaria) 

Importance of resveratrol (found high in Japanese knotweed) for immune regulation

Download my free Cervical Embodiment meditation!

Join the waitlist for The Womb Room

Vulvodynia and Vaginsmus are fancy terms for vulva and pain, irritation, and constriction -- and this is something that many more of us experience than we might think!

In a context where female pelvic pain is either normalized or pathologized, in my conversation with Maura, we offer a different perspective: that vulva and vaginal discomfort is an invitation for simple, hands on medicine. 

In our chat, we explore:

• what these terms mean, and why the medical terminology doesn't mean much to us
• our own respective experiences with painful touch/penetration 
• Why hands-on and hands-in pussy work is essential for our health 
• Simple practices for supporting our pelvic tissue

Womb Steaming is one of my favorite practices for supporting our pelvic bowl and tissue healing. Download the sovereign steaming guide here!

Intro and outro music: “Cicada” by AnAkA. Thank you sister!

Listen to the free Cervical Embodiment Meditation

Apply to join us in The Womb Room, a year long container for womb sovereignty

Are your pelvic health care needs being met by a visit to the gynecologist?

A GYN can provide medical support, but isn’t typically trained in taking a root-cause approach to common pelvic health issues. If you’re feeling frustrated or misaligned with the type of care you’re receiving, you’ve got options! In this episodes, we’re getting clear on what gynecology has to offer (and what it doesn’t), and the types of practitioners you can look for when you’re seeking alternatives for care.

Whether you’re experiencing menstrual pain, cervical dysplasia, PCOS, seeking contraception, or just looking to be more deeply supported in your body sovereignty, this is for you!

Have you joined the Free Your Womb Masterclass yet? It’s totally free, and we’re diving into the practical skills we need for our womb sovereignty. Save your spot here!

Ready to dive deeper? The Womb Room Membership Community is open for enrollment! Join us as a founding member!

Resources:

Book: Everything Below The Waist: Why Healthcare Needs a Feminist Revolution, by Jennifer Block

Do New Guidelines and Technology Make the Routine Pelvic Examination Obsolete?

Evidence Summary: Harms of Screening for Breast Cancer

Loop Electrosurgical Excision Procedure and Risk of Preterm Birth: A systematic Review and meta analysis

"My PMDD journey taught me to let go of who I thought I should be, in order to realize who I am." These are the wise words of Saare Elizabeth, fitness instructor, reiki practitioner, healing facilitator and owner of The Healers Nest. 

In today's episode, Saare shares about her journey with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder and how her spiritual practices and work with energy medicine has supported her in living a fully-expressed, integrated life.

We get into the difference between pain and suffering, how Saare came to reiki and energy work, and how it transformed her relationship with PMDD -- and her life.

You can connect with Saare's 1:1 and online course work in reiki, meditation and more on Instagram, Youtube, or her website.

Are you looking for a community of resource and support on your hormone healing journey? Join us in The Womb Room Membership! We dive deep into radical body literacy, and get to the foundations of our physical and spiritual nourishment through self-guided courses, live moon calls, and 1:1 practitioner support. Join us here!

How can we grow our ability to hear our body speak -- and what might the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda have to offer us in supporting this  relationship?

These are questions we bring to today's conversations with my dear friend, Bryn Hlava.

Bryn is an Ayurvedic Wellness Counselor, Marma Therapist and 300hr Certified Yoga Teacher through the lineage of Bhakti Yoga. Through practical applications of Ayurvedic wisdoms, foods & herbs, lifestyle, somatic movement, meditation and more, Bryn brings a curiosity and trust in the infinite wisdom of the body, mind and soul, and weaves it with ancient teachings of the material and spiritual worlds to bring us closer to our optimal state of being.

We get into:

• The difference between knowing through the mind, and knowing in the body
• Shifting from a goal-oriented relationship with the body to one of growing our capacity to hear the body.
• The problem with over-identifying with our imbalances
• Making sense of the doshas, our true nature, and moving out of pathologizing our seasonal shifts
• How we can weave Ayurvedic principles into our experience of cyclical living

Check out Bryn's upcoming in-person training & retreat, Touch and Receive, in the beautiful hills of North Carolina (Oct 3-13)

Explore Bryn's website and learn from her beautiful Instagram 

Join Qiddist & Bryn inside The Womb Room Community Membership -- Bryn will be guiding an upcoming full-body self oil massage practice (Abhyanga) there on August 13!

What do our hormones have to do with our gut health, and how can understanding this connection help us support healthy digestion?

This is what we explore in today’s episode with Ashe Milkovic,  a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and Functional Hormone Specialist. The founder of The Functional Women’s Academy, Ashe has a  passion for spreading awareness about the power of functional nutrition for optimizing hormones & fertility. 

With gas, bloating, constipation and food intolerance becoming so normalized, it’s time to shed some light on what’s going on with our hormones, and how we can support optimal health!

In the episode, we discuss: 

• The gut- womb connection, and what estrogen has to do with digestive health
• The role of a functional nutritionist and Ashe’s journey to this role
• Common symptoms that aren’t actually “normal” and what optimal gut health looks like
• Lifestyle tips for hormone and gut health, and the “5-R approach” to gut restoration
• How you can become a practitioner through Ashe’s Functional Women’s Academy!

Enroll in The Functional Women’s Academy with $50 off using the code WOMBROOM50 (just a few spots left!)

Intro and outro music: “Cicada” by AnAkA. Thank you sister!

Save your spot in the free Sovereign Womb Masterclass: Opening to the Path of Your PowerApply to join The Womb Room, a year long container for womb sovereignty

If you have endometriosis and you've been told that you're destined to have painful periods and "endo belly" forever -- you're going to want to listen in.

Today we're chatting with Arin Nicole, a Function Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (FNTP) who has gone from suffering to thriving with endometriosis, and now supports others on their menstrual healing journey. 

We get into the nuances of endometriosis and the nutrition connection, including:

-Arin's journey with endo and the choices around surgery

-Taking a root cause approach, and what nutrition has to do with endo

-Understanding what endometriosis is and how it operates

-Practical steps for gut healing 

-Our favorite test to help you identify your nutrient needs

...and more!

To connect with Arin, visit her website or find her on Instagram!

To deepen your intuitive understanding of nutrition, nourishment, and sovereign healing, join us in The Womb Room Membership!

And, for more notes from today's episode, visit the podcast page.

Today I’m talking with Settareh Derafsh Kaviani, a first generation Persian-American woman, mother, birth worker and researcher, and witch who has devoted her life to healing herself and her lineage. After quitting her career as a clinical social worker, she continues to do the deep work of self-healing, and guiding women through the transformation from victimhood to freedom through transcendent birth and spiritual remembrance.

In our conversation we explore:

• Settareh’s journey through birth, lineage healing, moving out of victim consciousness and reclaiming her Persian identity
• Moving through intergenerational pain and patterns
• The language of “trauma informed” and how we choose to orient instead
• Re-orienting to triggers, shifting out of numbness, and taking responsibility with self-compassion
• How Settareh’s painless, ecstatic second birth propelled her healing journey

Connect with Settareh and her work on Instagram at thesacredwitch, and at her website at thesacredwitch.com.

During mercury retrograde, I went through a bank scam that left me with $0. This is the story of what happened, how I'm alchemizing, and why I'm grateful for it -- and the clarity it's given me to cultivate financial resilience, and speak more openly about wealth generation. 

If this lands for you, I invite you to join me in a free live offering with me on February 23: OVERFLOW: Rewiring Our Relationship With Resource. 

Together, we'll be exploring :

• somatic practice
• inner child tending and unwinding of beliefs
• exploring the energetics of receiving, holding, and creating
• a transmission of my own journey with money, receptivity,  – and what I learned from recently losing a LOT of money
• what quantum physics has to do with our ability to create

To learn more about Healy, visit here. (The resonance and above models are currently 40% off -- and the professional model is 60% off until February 21!) 

Last year I shared an episode on "my unpopular thoughts on the abortion bans". Since then, I've supported over 70 women in navigating the decision and process of bringing on their bleed. Today, I'm sharing my reflections and takeaways. 

I share about:

• my origin story in reproductive sovereignty work, and my personal potential pregnancy scare
• what my mother's experience has to do with my path
• the balance between rejecting credentialism, while honoring education and lineage
• why I am NOT an abortion activist
• My three takeaways from the last year of case studies
• what I believe is needed in stepping onto this medicine path 
• what led me to start Sovereign Cycles, a mentorship learning program for pregnancy prevention & release work
• how you can learn with me this year and cultivate your skills!

Save your spot in the free live class! Plant Allies for Pregnancy Prevention, Tuesday 8/15 (yes, there will be a replay)

Stay tuned for next week's enrollment opening of this year's cohort of Sovereign Cycles, a 6-month mentorship & learning container 

Join The Womb Room Community Membership

Other resources & names mentioned:

• Robin Rose Bennett
• Karen Kulpepper
• Ashley Elenbaas (Skyhouse Herb School)
• Samantha Zipporah
• Molly Dutton Kenny
• Gilbert Renaud (recall healing)
• poet: Sonia Sanchez

A woman tending the kitchen has become an image of oppression, rather than pride and power -- but what if this return is not only a pathway to health, but also to liberation and cultural change? 

I talk with Cervical Wellness founder and Integrative Health Coach, Denell Barbara Randall, about the role of kitchen medicine as nourishment as devotion and the journey into softness in our healing. We share about:

• How we now both are orienting to our lives through play and flexibility rather than through a rigid prescription of healing
• Full nourishment, our journeys to incorporating more animal products, and the difference between what our mind and bodies want.
• The return of women to the hearth (the kitchen) and how we create cultural change here
• Returning to cooking as lineage work and the remembering of ancient wisdom
• Turning being in the kitchen from an oppressive chore to a liberating devotion
• Food as our root and our relationship with receiving nourishment and belonging
• Denell’s perspectives on business, online marketing, “boss babe” obsession, and shifting how she offers her work
• The energetics of money in our work and recovering from comparison 

Find Denell on  Instagram

Check out Denell's live upcoming course, Kitchen Hearth Heart Heal: The Way of the Devotional Cook, to build your kitchen medicine skills (course runs April 18- May 23!)

Learn about the foundations of female nutrition and so much more body & spirit alchemy in The Womb Room Community Membership 

Maura (@call_me_a_witch) is back with us today with a conversation that has been coming up in our community lately: what is happening with the men, and how can an understanding of energetics support our relationships with them? 

Whether it's romantic, familial, friendship or otherwise, we've come to the conclusion that we can no longer claim that the wellbeing of men is "not our problem". As we think about where we have mistaken men's societal position of power for their freedom, we orient to the spiritual and practical necessity of orienting to men's energetics, and what they carrying in our society today. 

Maura Sternberg is a witch, healing holder, curse breaker, and co-ritual holder with me inside The Womb Room. She also works 1-1 with people (including men!) through Call Me A Witch. 

Check out her 1-1 offerings here.

If you are a woman who wants to learn how to cultivate emotional and spiritual sovereignty, energetic agility, and make medicine out of your life, join us in Sovereign Womban, our year-long foundational container that we hold together. Enrollment closes on Samhain (Oct 31)!

Join the community membership here

Mushroom medicine, and psilocybin in particular, can be a powerful earth ally in healing -- especially in relationship to womb work, birth, and even mothering. In today's conversation, I talk with Mikaela de la Myco, a facilitator of mushroom medicine and an educator of "mushWOMB consciousness," which honors the cyclical nature of life and death, and opens up us to deep truth and expansion. 

In our conversation, we dive into: 

• how entheogen medicine can open us up to the divine 
• decolonizing mushrooms, and honoring their ancestral role in in pregnancy, birth and mothering
• what consuming mushrooms can look like across a mothering journey
• being in right relationship with death and dying
• yoni steaming, psilocybin, and trauma healing

If you've been curious to explore the possibilities of earth medicine in your womb healing journey, may this open up doors for you!

Connect with Mikaela, including her small herbal shop and 1:1 in person and remote mushWOMB care, and find her on Instagram

Download Mikaela's entheogen assisted motherhood guide

Check out our free resources, including an herbs for womb health guide, cervical embodiment meditation, fertility tracking workshop and more at thewombroom.co!

Struggling with overwhelm, overstimulation, circular thoughts, distraction and restless seemed to take over my every day...these patterns are often labeled as "ADHD". When I oriented to the paradigm of biological adaptation through the lens of Germanic Healing, I had a big "aha" about these patterns, that shifted their expression for good. 

In this solo episode I share about: 

• my thoughts on ADHD and "neurodivergence" culture
• my personal experience with ADHD and how my relationship with it was contributing to suffering and feeling at the effect of my own brain
• The biological conflicts that actually cause the behavior patterns of forgetfulness and distraction, as well as restless and constant motion 
• What "constellations" are in GNM and how they create behavioral changes
• The core memories that unlocked the "why" behind my ADHD patterns 
• The role of re-mothering, earth safety, and embodied expression in repatterning my brain 
• Adaptive patterns as a divine gift, and why we might not want to resolve some of our adaptations 
• Moving out of the good/bad paradigm and into spaciousness, curiosity and agency 
• Attachment to our identities and labels and how they keep us small (and protected)

Want to play and explore in a space with others orienting to our sacred biology and liberatory evolution? 

JOIN US IN CHRYSALIS: Women's sacred biology and energetic alchemy -- transform from the inside out (enrollment closes on April 22 and will reopen in a year!) 

Not ready for the deep dive but want to step into this world? Join the Womb Room Community Membership for just $22 monthly 

Want an introduction to the biological laws and germanic healing? Watch the free class, KEYS TO COHERENCE

GNM website

Do you know how to read your cervical mucus, track your ovulation, and understand what your cervical fluids mean about your health? 💦

Today, I’m talking with someone who loves talking about cervix just as much as I do— and that’s Chloe Skerlak! 

Chloe is a holistic reproductive health practitioner and full spectrum fertility awareness educator. Her mission is to break the taboo around the menstrual cycle, guide people on their journey to body literacy, and teach comprehensive and accurate fertility awareness to support people in their sexual and reproductive decision-making.

In our conversation we explore: 

• what our  cervical fluid actually  is, and how to find it 
• Different types of mucus and what’s considered “normal”
• How to accurately track mucus as part of a fertility awareness practice 
• Different categories of mucus in the symptothermal vs Justisse methods of fertility awareness 
• What cervical mucus can tell us about our health 
• How we can love on our cervix!

To connect with Chloe and her 1-1 and group coaching programs, check out her Instagram and her website !

To get access to Fearlessly Fertile, a video library for learning how to track your cycles, check out the Womb Room Community Membership!

Apply to Sovereign Womban, a year-long container in The Womb Room

When you get "triggered," what do you do? In our culture, it's common to move into blame, shame, or shutdown -- but what might these activating feelings have to teach us, and what does it have to do with our womb sovereignty? 

In this episode, I'm sharing a recording from inside The Womb Room, my year-long container for cultivating womb sovereignty and matriarchal healing. I get into:

• The difference between experiencing victimization, and taking on the identity of victim
• How we can hold the truth of systems of oppression, while still centering our sovereignty
• Why the impulse to "hero" others (and ourselves) is actually an issue of supremacy 
• 3 questions to explore when you experience a trigger, and how they might be for us 
• Why the capacity to hold sensation in our nervous system is absolutely central to putting womb sovereignty into practice

This is a big one... deep breaths, be gentle, and offering you big love!

Join the waitlist for The Womb Room -- enrollment opens in February!

Download our free guide to sovereign womb steaming

Have you heard of the naturopathic approach to resolving cervical dysplasia and HPV? Called "escharotics," this is a process where a topical solution (typically a mix of zinc and particular herbs) are applied to the face of the cervix -- often in tandom with nutritional and lifestyle changes. Today, I'm talking with my friend (of 22 years!) Lizzie Medford, about her experience with escharotics and how she successfully experienced clear paps after CIN3 dysplasia. 

I want to share this with you so that you know there are many different paths to cervical care, and, even if you're not ready to take the full leap into self-healing, there are still options outside of the mainstream gynecological model that may feel right for you. 

We discuss:

• what it was like to go "against" the recommendations of the gynecologist 
• the risks of the LEEP procedure, and the importance of doing your own research 
• The experience of escharotic treatment
• Navigating other people's fears and concerns, especially with your own health choices
• Developing a deeper self trust by choosing what is in alignment  

If you're interested to explore more about cervix, you can join our upcoming live class: Cervical Healing Through Nervous System Tending on Nov. 16 at 4pm, by joining the Womb Room Community Membership for $22/ month!

And, if you're wanting to dive deep into cervical health and embodiment, as well as the deep nervous system and spirit-level work of orienting to our sovereignty, enrollment for Sovereign Womban is open until Nov. 23. 

What is magic, really -- and how can it be used to support our physical healing? Listen in on a segment of the audio from our recent free class, "Awakening Elemental Magic," where we tell a solstice story of our sister who developed an acute full-body rashed that turned to anaphylaxis...and how we walked with her through a resolve, using our understanding and practice of MAGIC. 

We touch on: 

• germanic healing knowledge and how recognizing our conflicts will often lead to a worsening of symptoms known as a "healing crisis" 
• how we worked across distance and across multiple bodies to pull an energetic arrow out of our sister's chest 
• why we orient to magic and healing from an interdependent view, and how we can decrease severity of symptoms by spreading out the charge across bodies 
• details for SHAMANI: our upcoming 12-week energetic skills intensive for you to awaken your innate elemental magic, and learn to weave change with the unseen. 

If this lights you up, join us inside The Womb Room for our inagural cohort of SHAMANI! Enrollment closes on January 2. 

CLASS VIDEO REPLAY AND SHAMANI ENROLLMENT

Need-based partial scholarships available with priority to women of color. Application Here

Have you ever considered what your hair, and how you care for it, have to do with your womb, nervous system, and even your sovereignty?

Today I’m sharing a conversation with my dear friend Arielle. She’s a mother, wife, herbalist, hair healer, and a member of The Womb Room!

With an extensive background and successful career as a hairdresser, Arielle’s experience with a medical midwife during the birth of her daughter revealed the illusion of licensure as safety, and caused her to question the role of licensure in her own life and work.

Now, Arielle is a sovereign hair healer and herbal educator, and she’s sharing with us the many connections between our hair, our overall wellness, and our power.

We get into:

• How most haircare products (including “natural” ones) contain endocrine disruptors that can impact our health
• Witnessing racism and misogyny in the hair industry
• The connection between our hair and our nervous system
• The “witch wound” and the importance of touch and intimacy in female friendships
• The facade of licensure, and redefining risk and safety in our sovereign health choices
• Top tips for beginning a “no poo” (shampoo free) journey for all hair types

…and more!

If you’re listening to this when it’s released, make sure to check out Arielle’s small batch apothecary, SubLuna Botanicals, which updates on Friday, December 3!

And, check out her upcoming Feral Herbalism Series, and her Instagram.

Download our free herbs for womb health guide

To hang out with both of us in The Womb Room, join us —enrollment closes December 21!

In Chinese Medicine, the womb is known as an "extraordinary organ", and offers us wisdom about the energetics of our bodies, and how we can best tend to balance throughout our life cycles. In this conversation with acupuncturist, herbalist and womb tender,  Kristin Hauser.

• Yin and yang energetics in the body, and the practice of surrender
• Kristin's postpartum lessons and honoring the desire to become a mother
• What it means to live in a time of "yin depletion" and the importance of preconception nourishment
• How a Chinese medicine lens can help us break free from orienting to our bodies through a medical paradigm 
• The heart-womb meridian, and the brilliance of why our womb holds so much emotion

As a licensed acupuncturist, herbalist, somatic sex educator and mama, Kristin runs Womb Medicine: an online platform for empowering womb and sexual health education. You can check out her courses and yoni steam blends at wombmedicine.com, and her virtual and in-person 1-1 care here  She also co-teaches The Blood Mysteries School, which opens in February.

Download my free guide to womb steaming 

Check out the Womb Room community membership, including Maura & Qiddist's intro to yin & yang energetics series, for just $22 per month!

Ready to commit to a deep exploration of your body, your patterns, and your pattern? Join us in SOVEREIGN WOMBAN for 2023. 

This week we have birth keeper Akia Gaston, owner of Garden of Birth Roots. As a birth worker, she takes a primal approach to supporting wombyn as they remember and reclaim their power through pregnancy, birth and postpartum.  We dive into Akia's own birth stories including her VBAC, critiques of licensed midwifery, and why reclaiming our power in birth is important and ancestral -- particularly for Black women. 

Akia is currently enrolling for her Rooted Birth Keeper Mentorship program for aspiring birthworkers! Enrollment closes on Sunday, September 19. Check it out here!

Save your spot in Qiddist's upcoming Free Your Womb masterclass -- unpacking the myths of gynecology and the skills you need to reclaim sovereign womb care. It's free, but spots are limited! Register here.

I'm coming back to the podcast! I'm sharing some updates and a nourishing conversation with my friend Jeevan Singh on embodied business and earth-paced entrepreneurship. 

Listen in on our conversation about: 

• Counter-culture mothering as an opportunity for spaciousness and creativity
• Our body as microcosm of the earth 
• Stepping out of extractive and exploiting practices in our entrepreneurial work
• Tending others with integrity through tending ourselves
• How stress can feel good, and how we can observe our addictions to hustle and work, and why rest can feel so uncomfortable
• Is it possible to run a business and be in our integrity?
• Pleasure-forward work and inviting ease into our business through the moment to moment pause 
• Healing our relationship with worthiness and the willingness to be seen
• Being in our “true size” even when it activates others
• A somatic practice for pricing your offers

Check out Jeevan's embodied business group program, Sacred Fire. (Update, it's now 6 months, not 4!) Applications open now! 

Follow Jeevan on Instagram

Join The Womb Room Community Membership 

And stay tuned for next week for the opening of Sovereign Cycles: plants, practices and presence for pregnancy prevention and release 

Have you been wanting to learn how to prevent pregnancy naturally? 

Maybe you've heard of Fertility Awareness methods, or have been wishing you could ditch hormonal contraceptives, but you keep thinking, "I just can't afford to get pregnant." 

In this episode, I'm walking you through the 3 crucial steps to successfully preventing pregnancy naturally, using the sympto-thermal method of fertility awareness, and plant allies as back-up!

There's so much misinformation about our cycles (like the myth that we're fertile every day), and you can absolutely learn how to confidently prevent pregnancy on your terms. The sympto-thermal method is actually 99.4% effective when used correctly!

Want to dive deeper into the science and sacred of contraception? Join us in Sovereign Cycles, an 8-week live group intensive on pregnancy prevention! When you join The Womb Room Membership at the annual level by Oct 31, you'll get access to this live immersion experience, as well as everything else we offer in The Womb Room. 

Check out our free intro to fertility tracking workshop

The efficacy of the sympto-thermal method 

Free PDF guide to breaking up with birth control

Tips for fertility tracking postpartum

Robin Rose Bennet on Queen Anne's Lace (Wild Carrot)

Check out The Womb Room website for more resources, guides, and podcast blog

"Period pain isn't normal." We hear this all the time in the menstrual health world and social media -- and I've said it too!

While it's true that period pain isn't inevitable or typically optimal, orienting to pain as bad or as a pathology doesn't serve us, either. 

In this episode, I'm sharing some of my thoughts on this phrase, the recent pushback to it, and how we can orient to our sovereignty, agency, and innate healing brilliance of our bodies. 

Save your spot in the FREE Masterclass, Cycles, Sex & Sovereignty: Opening the Path to Sovereign Female Health

Intro and outro music: “Cicada” by AnAkA. Thank you sister!

What is womb sovereignty, and why does it matter?

For the first-ever episode of The Womb Room Podcast with Qiddist, we're setting the foundation by talking about how (and why) we can cultivate a sovereign relationship with our womb.

We get into why womb sovereignty matters, and how it breaks down to three components: body literacy, pelvic embodiment, and sovereign skill-building. 

And of course, we'll get into 3 things you can start doing today to cultivate a deeper relationship with your womb and practice being in your autonomy!

The Womb Room Membership is almost here! To get a free, exclusive sneak peek of this powerful membership community, rate and review this podcast! Here's what to do:

1. Rate and review on Apple podcasts

2. Screenshot your review and send it to hello@thewombroom.co

3. The team will get you on the list for an amazing month of live workshops, community conversation, and self-guided exploration in The Womb Room!

Download any of our free resources, including:

-Fertility Tracking 101 Workshop

-PMS Reset Mini Course

-Herbs for Womb Health Guide

-Cervical Embodiment Meditation

Do you ever wonder HOW to listen to your intuition? Do you feel called to step into sovereign health, but feel pressured by what external authorities say you "should" do? 

This really comes down to tending your nervous system and creating space to be fully expressed in your body -- and it's key to being in our sovereignty. 

Today I chat with Maura Sternberg about what embodied practice looks like in The Womb Room, and WHY it's so important to being in our power. 

And, you're invited to join us!! Join us for a one-time, live practice session, or become a community member and get access to bi-monthly practice session, live group calls, our fertility awareness course and more. Come practice with us here.  

Our next practice session is February 8!

Opening and closing music: "Cicada" by AnAkA

What is your relationship like with resources, receiving, and money? How might we transform our money stories so that we can be open to our fullest abundance -- and pour back into our communities from our overflow?

I've never talked about money publicly befpre, and honestly, it still makes me cringe a little! But, it's time. What if we could create a loving, reciprocal, matriarchal system of wealth creation? It's happening.

I'm so honored to share my conversation with matriarch and creatrix Katya Nova, where we share the journeys of our relationships with money, receiving and abundance -- and how you can join us in transforming your relationship with resource.

We talk about: 

• Why we've avoided talking about money (until now!)
• Katya's family money story and how it led her here
• Why Katya having NO money was important on her journey to creating and receiving abundance
• "solidarity struggle" and how I attached worth to NOT having money
• Shifting from survival and "just enough" to thriving
• The relationship between SURRENDER and receiving
• How money can be an ally and a tool for collective reciprocity and healing -- especially when it's in the hand of women & mothers
• What being a well-nourished woman (and drinking bone broth) have to do with our capacity to receive and hold resources

I want to lovingly invite you to THE CONFESSIONS MONEY BOOTCAMP 

Tickets on sale for $111 until July 15

(Yes, everything is also recorded and you will receive lifetime access. Everyone who joins through this link will also receive a month's access to The Womb Room community, where we'll be diving deeper!)

Check out my IG live with Freya Kellet on the vulnerability of our dreams, building businesses with integrity, and why we're talking about money online even though it makes us nervous

What nature can teach us about abundance: The reel you heard at the  intro

More of my thoughts on "solidarity struggle" and money healing in my Instagram highlight "MONEY"

Have you ever considered that how you stand, sit, breathe and move is a feminist issue?

Today we have Adelaide Meadow of Small Magic Birth -- she's a physiologist, yoga teacher, traditional midwife and body worker who shares a radical feminist approach to our pelvic health. 

We discuss the brilliance of the female pelvis, and how much of what we're taught in movement practice is not designed for our bodies. And, Adelaide shares practical, tangible tips for supporting your physiology and health!

Check out everything Adelaide has to offer on her website, and make sure to follow her on Instagram to hear about her upcoming intensives!

And for more sovereign pelvic care, join us in The Womb Room Membership -- where Adelaide will also be hanging out with us!

Join the *free* workshop series, Womb Worship, and get a taste of what we do in The Womb Room!

Today we have a special and tender episode with my friend, Nicole Granati. Nicole is a spiritual counselor, minister, and teacher -- as well as a long time member of The Womb Room! 

Nicole shares the story of her abortion outside the medical system, the lessons it brought, and how it changed her life.

It was especially beautiful to have this conversation with Nicole after being with her in the Sovereign Womban container for the past year, where we get to play with these practices of orienting to the medicine of our experiences, and what it means to move in our agency and sovereignty. In our conversation we get into:

• Nicole's family background and growing up outside the medical system
• How she approached a journey with an unplanned pregnancy, why she was drawn to menstrual extraction, and finding a midwife to walk with her
• The power of baby beings (spirit babies) and how Nicole chose to end an agreement with a baby being
• The challenges of postpartum and the need for community care
• How an abortion propelled Nicole from maiden to mother, and how it clarified her desire for motherhood
• Self responsibility, sovereignty, and desire (so much of what we talk about in the Sovereign Womban container in The Womb Room)
• How you can connect with baby beings in your life through the spirit of amusement

Connect with Nicole for 1:1 support at her website, Spiritual Hello, and on Instagram   (she's amazing!)

To become a medicine keeper of pregnancy prevention and release work, join Nicole and Qiddist in Sovereign Cycles , a 6-month group mentorship container.

If you want to journey with us deep into radical female health and spiritual sovereignty, now is the time to apply for Sovereign Womban, a year-long container in The Womb Room! Applications will close in October.

Get a taste of The Womb Room through the community membership 

(Note: for safety reasons, please do not message me on Instagram for feedback regarding pregnancy release. The best place to connect is the community membership, where you'll find me, Nicole, and many other wise women hanging out!)

I was sure that I would absolutely never try the Healy, the frequency medicine device that has swept the online "wellness" world. 

And yet, inspired by the stories of women I trust, I decided to explore it for my own chronic pain, scar tissue healing and more -- because I know first hand the power of energetic healing. 

What has happened so far has been beyond physical changes, openness and a new spaciousness in my tissues: it is supporting me in reorienting to how I relate to pain, possibility, and even the nature of our reality. 

So much of my skepticsm about Healy wasn't about the potency of the device, but rather about the ways I've seen it marketed. After sitting with it for some time, I'm finally ready to share my experience with you, in hopes that there is possibility for you, too.

If you're curious, skeptical, eye-rolling, or have no idea what the Healy is...may this episode be of service.

I've created a page with all my Healy resources and links here, so you can do your own exploration.

I'd love to hear your questions, reactions, curiosities and critiques -- the best way is to DM me on Instagram at @thewombroom.co. I'll voice note you back!

If you want to take advantage of the 45% off sale that ends on Nov 30, use the following links:

Shop USA

Shop Europe

Shop Canada

Shop Australia

And if you do purchase one through my link, let me know! I'm gifting you access to The Womb Room Community Membership, as a place for integration, further learning, and if you're interested, a space to explore the business side of Healy together. 

What if there is medicine to be found in our jealousies and insecurities with other women? Or our challenges with our mothers? The phrase "sisterhood wound" seems to have burst into the collective consciousness recently, and today, I talk with my friend Chelsea Leone explore what this wound is, and how we can work with it for deeper relationships and freedom.

Chelsea is a sister, herbalist, teacher, and a self proclaimed "sex and shadow mentor, witch and artist". Her work encompasses sexuality, embodied expression, and sisterhood, with the intention of leading women to remember their primal nature and be fully expressed.

We discuss:

• Why our motherline is our “OG sisterhood,” and how it informs our sisterhood wounds
• Allowing chaos as an important part of sisterhood
• What to do when we find ourselves in friendships that are not nourishing
• How we can cultivate authentic relationships, and why womb work may be the center
• How being in relationship with the womb causes the parts of us that are not true to fall away
• Why there’s healing in being honest in our judgments and jealousies about others

Check out Chelsea's instagram, website, and especially her self guided course on the sisterhood wound!

SOVEREIGN WOMBAN, my year long container for female health, sovereignty and expression is now open. Get a taste of what it's like to work with me in this free offering!

I'm sharing something personal... I'm in a season of my own preconception time! This week, I'm sharing some of the ways that I'm nourishing myself in preparation for pregnancy and mothering. 

Sharing this is not meant to be prescriptive or to say what anyone "should" do, but rather to give a peek into my world and into the practices and tools that have been supporting my journey. And after witnessing hundreds of births and supporting so many women & families throughout the childbearing year... I feel more committed than ever to incorporate slow, simple medicine into my life. 

I share about:

• key nourishing foods and dietary changes I've made over the last year
• Why body work has been a huge part of my preconception time so far
• Re-mothering myself and inner child work
• Shifting patterns, how I'm already preparing for postpartum, and more!

This Spring in The Womb Room, we're diving into the themes of Desire, Fertility, and Mothering. It's going to be juicy.

Apply for the year-long Sovereign Womban container here!

My favorite Liver Pills (use code TRIBE10 for 10% off)

My favorite gut healing collagen and gelatin (I add collagen to teas, juice, oatmeal, baked goods and gelatin to soups, sauces and more!)

Trace Mineral drops for deep nourishment

If you find yourself afraid of disappointing others, stuck in spirals of shame or judgement, or attaching your worth to your goodness, you might have a case of "good girl programming". I chat with Lindsey Lockett, nervous system and trauma educator, about how through tending our nervous system, we can bring awareness to old patterns, and learn how to mobilize into our fullest expression. 

We explore: 

• “Good girl programming” and how it shows up in our nervous system response, and our relationship with other women
• Lindsey’s evangelical upbringing and its impact on her default responses
• The “freeze” response versus immobilization, and how it shows up in women
• Reflective questions for when we get activated
• Our collective attachment to identifying with dis-ease
• How our culture is driven by “good girl programming” of not wanting to be “bad” or “wrong”
• How we can shift patterns through building awareness of our inner voices

Join Lindsey’s Unlearning the Good Girl Role half-day Immersion

Check out her nervous system workshop, resources, and 1-1 work here, and her Instagram @iamlindseylockett.

Join The Womb Room Community Membership and learn foundation female body literacy and embodiment for $22 monthly

In today's episode, we have a powerful birth story from Elizabeth Johnson -- a first time mother who chose to journey through pregnancy and birth outside of the medical system. And, I was her birth attendant!

Elizabeth tells the story of trusting her intuition, preparing for her family-centered homebirth, and the beautiful emergence of her daughter Nova.

Whether you plan to give birth one day or not, this episode is truly story medicine for our collective narratives of birth.

Save your spot in the Free Your Womb masterclass -- it's free!

Download our free tools for womb healing

At the core of our being is the psoas — sometimes known as a muscle, or as my guest Liz Koch calls it, a “fluid messenger” that has so much to teach us about what it means to walk rooted on the earth.

Liz Koch is an international educator the creator of Core Awareness,™ a somatic approach to deepening the experience of the human core, and the author of beautiful books including The Psoas Book and Stalking Wild Psoas.

In our conversation, we explore:

• the primal brain and the animal body — the sense of knowing we have in our womb
• the shift from viewing ourselves as disjointed parts to a living ecosystem
• the womb as an organ of perception
• how spiraling into menopause can bring a new level of wholeness and autonomy
• eldership and how as a collective we are missing our mothers
• how women have participated in handing over our power by outsourcing our fear, and how psoas can bring us back to our primal power
• the function of psoas and its relationship with fear and safety
• How we can come home to our body and the earth as a re-mothering process

…And sooo much more.

Check out Liz’s Incredible website, Core Awareness, and her recorded and live workshops. 

Get the Earlybird pricing for Confessions of a Well Nourished Woman until April 17!

Join us in The Womb Room Community Membership

What’s a Pap smear? Where is my cervix? How can I take care of my cervical health?

We get into all this and more on today’s episode, as I share my personal journey of healing from abnormal Paps, and we break down some of the science and the sacred of our cervical anatomy.

Tune into to hear about:

• How I dealt with abnormal pap results
• The connection between the cervix and your nervous system
• The pleasure potential of the cervix
• 4 root cause component for cervical health care
• How our emotions directly change our physiological reality
• Why Pap tests aren’t the only option for cervical care

Registration for The Cervix Celebration is open for 1 week! Join me for a live, virtual immersion into the magic of your cervix — and learn how to look at your cervix yourself! Steaming herbs and cervical exam kit include. Save your spot at https://thewombroom.co/cervix

Curious how to feel into your cervix? Download the FREE Cervical Embodiment meditation and cultivate a relationship with your sacred cervix. Grab it at https://thewombroom.co/meditation

It's the last week to get a free sneak peek of The Womb Room Membership! To do so:

1. Rate and review the podcast

2. Screenshot your review and send to hello@thewombroom.co

A member of the team will email you with your login information. We start Monday, September 6. We can't wait to see you in The Womb Room!

How do our bodies experience, metabolize and alchemize the energetics of war? We share a conversation with Rachel Leibovich, community member in The Womb Room, and founder of Esperanza's Acres where she practices as a jewish priestess, ritualist and dream weaver in service to community healing and justice. 

Rachel came to us in our "matriarchal health care" section of The Womb Room with curiosity about an acute expression of symptoms. She shares the story of how the phsyical healing has been a piece of her alchemical process of navigating identity, community, expression and work as a Jewish woman, amdist the ongoing genocide in Palestine.

We share this as an example of how by working our internal landscape, by honoring the expression of the body, we shift the world around us, through accessing our true expression. Deep gratitude.

Notes on rectal bleeding:

In the GHK paradigm, rectal bleeding can arise in the healing phase of a couple different conflicts. In an identity conflict where on feels they do not have place,community, belonging, the body will attempt to establish "territory" as mammals do, through defecation. During the conflict active phase, the lining of the rectum ulcerates, so as to make more space to mark the territory. In the resolution of the conflict, there is swelling, cell proliferation, and there can be hemorrhoids and rectal bleeding

Alternatively, a feces or "shit conflict" is an expression of a "shitty situation," where cells in the colon and/or rectum proliferate in the conflict active phase, in order to better "digest" the situation. Rectal bleeding can occur in the resolution phase. 

*I am a lay woman on the internet. These are stories, and not intended as medical information nor advice. Proceed in your sovereignty!*

JOIN THE WOMB ROOM MEMBERSHIP  https://join.thewombroom.co/community

Find Rachel on IG https://www.instagram.com/ralgal/

Esperanza's Acres https://www.rachelleibovich.com/

Welcome to The Womb Room Podcast, a space for radical female health education, autonomous womb care, and conversations on cultivating a sovereign relationship with your womb.

I'm Qiddist Ashe, and I'm a female health educator, birthkeeper, and clinical herbalist. I'm the founder of The Womb Room, and I'm here to support you on the journey to stepping into your power by getting to the root of your pelvic health issues, aligning your life with your cycle, and cultivating a sovereign relationship with your womb.

Every week, we’re diving into the real talk we need on periods and menstrual health, unpacking sex, pelvic pain,  and pleasure redefining what nourishment and nutrition mean, and journeying through powerful stories of autonomous birth, do-it-yourself pelvic care, and so much more.

If you’re looking for sisterly guidance, radical health education  with a good dose of Spirit medicine and a dash of apocalyptic skill building...you’re in the right place!

I believe deeply that our wombs are the key to our power, and I trust in your innate healing wisdom. Let’s jump in.

When we loosen our grip on the "goal" of healing, we can experience the play and potential of the present -- and embodied internal relation that re-parents our inner child. In this conversation I talk with Tejal Patel, a somatic educator, yoga teacher, and facilitator of embodied liberation, who supports women in trusting their life force and vision. We explore: 

• Tejal's background in Eastern Mysticism and Taoism and how it relates to her orientation to healing and liberation 
• our inner mother and father and the practice of reparenting ourselves
• Stepping into the "mature feminine" 
• the womb-throat connection of the feminine-masculine, feeling-communicating roles within us
• how trauma resolution happens through play 
• tension as the experience of living outside the present moment
• putting down the endless tools for healing and growing our capacity for being
• sovereignty as a practice of embodiment, not hyper-independence

Follow Tejal on Instagram at @tejal _p

Check out her community, Temple of Remothering 

Join The Womb Room Community Membership 

If you've been diagnosed with cervical dysplasia or HPV, you might have heard terms like colposcopies, LEEP procedures, and CIN thrown around -- but what do these mean, and what options do you actually have?

I've been in your shoes, and today, we're diving into part 2 of our cervical health series by unpacking the risks and benefits of conventional medical treatment options, and some alternatives. 

• The actual risks of LEEP procedures, colposcopies and more
• Why you might consider these – and why you might not
• The impacts on our fertility, pleasure, and long term health
• How we can heal from past procedures (your body is resilient!)
• Alternative approaches, and what root-cause cervical care looks like

This information is just a slice of what I offer in Cervical Healing, my self-guided course inside The Womb Room Membership! Founding members' pricing closes on October 31!

Download the free cervical embodiment meditation 

Check out our free tools for womb healing

If you've experienced fibroids, you've likely felt the frustration, fear-mongering from providers, or sense of confusion that often comes with the question of, "can I eliminate fibroids without surgery?"

In today's conversation, I talk with Cecili Simmons, owner of Operation Fibroid Freedom. She supports women in eliminating fibroids naturally and reclaiming their womb wellness as divine birthright. After her own journey with fibroids, Cecili's mission is to support all women with fibroids in having the tools to heal. 

We talk about:

• Cecili's journey and the courage to believe in healing
• The medicine of our fibroids and what they can teach us
• Cecili's cleanses and the role juicing plays
• What autophagy is and how you can support your body's innate elimination responses

Check out Cecili's Instagram, #byefibroids cookbook, and 1:1 and group coaching

Alley shares her journey of getting the IUD and the significant consequences it had on her health -- none of which she received information about from her providers. 

After experiencing medical gaslighting and feeling frustrated with the lack of answers, she decided enough was enough, and removed the IUD herself.

We discuss the inflammatory impacts of the copper IUD, navigating the medical industrial complex as a Black woman, and how sovereign IUD removal was a catalyst for Alley's healing journey and taking self-responsibility for her womb health. 

If you're feeling called to break up with your birth control but aren't sure what's next, check out our free resources, including the breaking up with birth control guide, and the fertility awareness 101 workshop!

And if you're ready to be supported in community on your womb sovereignty journey, join us in The Womb Room Membership community!

This podcast is intended as educational information, and does not constitute medical advice. I trust your sovereign decisions. 

What even is the "quantum" realm, and how might it fundamentally change how we think about health, healing, and the possibilities of our bodies? There are few practitioners who translate the vast world of quantum biology into simple, intuitive medicine -- and Dr. Catherine Clinton is one of them. A naturopathic physician, she focuses on the quantum nature of our biology and how this understanding can support us in tending our terrain. In our conversaiton, we explore:

• what quantum biology is, and how it changes how we think about health 
• sunlight, water, and frequency information for our healing
• how quantum physics is different from the Newtonian physics we all learned in school
• psycho neuro immunology and breaking down the barrier between "body" and "mind"
• quantum entanglement and healing beyond time and space 
• biofield medicine and how we are hardwired to be in coherence with each other 
• the potent power of our electromagnetic field
• the importance of structured water and its function as a liquid crystal
• Why aligning with circadian rhythms is the foundation of our quantum biology
• how cultivating relationship with (our) nature is what creates sustainable change 

If you'd like to learn more about Dr. Catherine's work, follow her amazing Instagram, and check out her course Unlocking Your Quantum Biology closes this week! Check it out here. 

Join The Womb Room Community Membership

Learn more about Healy 

This week we have Clarissa Gonzalez, an herbalist and cultural worker specializing in fertility, womb health, sleep & mental health at Blood Moon Healing where she is continuing the lineage of Traditional Mexican Medicine inherited grandmother wisdom & where she lifts up ethical, spiritual herbalism & learning from our herbal relatives. 

In our conversation, we explore the spiraling, internal ritual that is the menstrual cycle, and get into:

• Indigenous perspectives on the menstrual cycle, dreaming and intuition
• The significance of the dark moon and working with our subconscious
• Ways to explore our cycle as the root ritual of our lives 
• How our blood can heal us the world

And so much more! To connect with Clarissa’s beautiful work, including her Chicago-based apothecary and her virtual Conscious Moonstration course, visit her site at and follow her on Instagram.

Her upcoming programming includes a Cycles & Spirals Workshop: (Feb 14) ; Lunar Archetypal Journey: a 7 week course to transform your life with the cycles of the moon  (Feb 26); and her 8 week Conscious Moonstration course (April 16).

Intro and outro music: “Cicada” by AnAkA. Thank you sister!

Download our free Herbs for Womb Health Guide

Apply to join The Womb Room, a year long container for womb sovereignty

Alexandria Rema Saleem is a first generation Palestinian-American creatrix. (She's also a dear friend, Womb Room member, and mother of twins!) Her creative work activates from a place of multidimensional healing, to serve as a conduit of ancestral knowledge, collective consciousness, and communal desire. She works between the land, as a regenerative flower farmer, with sacred activism as the foundation of her artistic practice the interweaves through all of the seeds she plants. In this conversation, we explore:

• How we access the internal spaciousness to discern right action when there is threat in our nervous systems

• The language of “war,” “genocide,” and how we navigate our activations around language to find connection and relationship
• Alexandria’s experience of being able to feel family members in Palestine she has never met, through her bodily experience of grief
• Our quantum capacity to feel (grief, suffering, pain, joy, liberation), beyond the confines of time space
• How grief connects us to our lineages
• What it means to hold paradox in the body, and the ways that we use self-punishment, blame, or hopelessness as ways to get out of feeling
• Letting our yin (emotional expression) resource our yang (discernment, direction, action)
• Connection to land, food, family and the intergenerational alchemy as the lighthouses of liberation

Alexandria is a multimedia performance artist, art director, and set designer whose practice is hybrid, incorporating dance, performance art, film, installation, happenings, and environment design.

Her practice holds space for the intimate to become a window into the universal & cosmic; Inviting the collective experience to eclipse individual subjectivity and allow for an evolved empathetic process. She works with individuals, communities, and other creatives to reclaim our human right to have sacred spaces, through world building, dance, ritual, risk, and tenderness.

She is co-director of the Center for study and preservation of Palestine, Founding member of the Black Oregon Land Trust, and Co-founder of SWANA Rose Culture and community center. 

Some of her selected resources to share include:

PFC Palestinian femminist Collective

US Campagin for Palestinian Rights

Palestinian Youth Movement

Alexandria's IG

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Join The Womb Room, where we are cultivating coherence, embodied sovereignty, and practicing interdependence 

What does the moon and your astrology have to do with your fertility, and your fertile window? 

Perhaps you've heard the folklore that your natal moon phase has an impact on your fertility. Or, maybe you've dipped into the world of medical astrology. Or, you might have that friend who conceived despite diligently charting her cycle, and being certain she confirmed ovulation. What could explain this?

In this episode, I chat with mother, sovereign womban and fertility astrologer, Athena Fotula. She is the woman behind Wild Willing Wisdom, a place through which she channels her knowledge in fertility astrology, wild birth, and true natural medicine.

We explore:

• what medical astrology is, and what it has to do with your fertility
• your natal moon phase and the possibility of a second fertile window
• the scientific theories behind the impact of the moon on your ovulation
• the meeting place of science and surrender to mystery
• lunar astrology and the sex of your baby
• working with astrology to prepare for or avoid pregnancy
• sovereign mothering and trusting in your family's healing symptoms

You can check out Athena's work at Wild Willing Wisdom, and on Instagram, and see her offerings -- including fertility astrology counseling for conscious conception and contraception!

To learn the art and science of medicine keeping pregnancy prevention and release outside the medical model, check out SOVEREIGN CYCLES, 6-month apprenticeship container

For more radical body literacy and energetic alchemy work in community, join us in The Womb Room Community Membership

This information is not meant to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. No information shared should be considered medical advice. You are the sole authority over your body and health. 

It's my deep desire that we all feel resourced internally and externally to self-govern our wombs and support our communities in doing so as well. May this be received in the spirit it is shared in.

I talk about:

- why I don't believe abortion is a "right"

- how the fight for legal rights often keeps us out of our power, and what we can do instead of asking for permission

-my qualms with the liberal "self-managed abortion" language

-taking responsibility for our innate ability to govern life and death in our wombs

-practical ways we can return reproductive sovereignty to our own hands

I am teaching an imprompty upcoming FREE class on an Introduction to Herbs for Reproductive Sovereignty on Wednesday, May 11 at 10am PST. Save your spot here. 

If you want to learn how to hold wisdom and care in your communities around pregnancy prevention, herbal allies, early release, and abortion healing, join me for my LIVE 10 week group program, Sovereign Cycles. Earlybird pricing available here! BIPOC partial scholarships available via email.

Other resources:

Learn fertility awareness for just $22 per month in our Womb Room Community Membership 

Other practitioners to know: Molly Dutton Kenny, Samantha Zipporah, Bonnie McIntosh

Today on the podcast we have womb healing and pelvic embodiment guide, birthworker and yoga teacher, Veronica Constance. 

In our conversation we dive into one of both of our favorite topics: pelvic embodiment, what it has to do with our nervous system, and how it can support our lives. 

We get into:

• what pelvic embodiment means and feels like
• the role of pleasure in embodiment work
• why moving through stressful experiences needs to happen in the body
• what pelvic mapping is and why it's a powerful tool for our healing and regulation

If you desire to feel more deeply connected with and to your pelvic bowl, this is for you!

Connect with Veronica's 1-1 work, immersions, events and more here. 

Follow Veronica at Waking Womb

Download the free Cervical Embodiment meditation 

Join the waitlist for the womb room (opens Feb 1!)

Today we have Serendipiti Day talking about her experience intuitively healing her pelvic and uterine alignment. We get into how our our womb can move, and how its position impacts everything from our menstrual cycles to digestion!

Serendipiti shares about her journey to intuitive womb work, and gives tangible practices you can incorporate into your life to support optimal uterine alignment.

Serendipiti Day is a radical feminist who has spent the last ten years of her life hitchhiking all over the world, mostly by herself. Her passion for women's work was influenced by her childhood, when she experienced firsthand what it meant to be exploited because of her sex. Her work includes her two courses, "Arms of the Goddess: Healing from Sexual Abuse" and "Flourishing Women's Communities." Serendipiti now resides in the Midwest USA conspiring to co-creating a community of sisterhood.

Enroll in Serendipiti's next round of Arms of The Goddess: Healing From Sexual Abuse. (Enrollment closes August 27!)

The Womb Room Membership is almost here! To get a free, exclusive sneak peek of this powerful membership community, rate and review this podcast! Here's what to do:

1. Rate and review on Apple podcasts

2. Screenshot your review and send it to hello@thewombroom.co

3. The team will get you on the list for an amazing month of live workshops, community conversation, and self-guided exploration in The Womb Room!

Download any of our free resources, including:

-Fertility Tracking 101 Workshop

-PMS Reset Mini Course

-Herbs for Womb Health Guide

-Cervical Embodiment Meditation

From bloating to brain fog, menstrual pain and even dementia…could mold be an invisible factor?

This week we have my friend, Womb Room member, artist and wellness guide Ciera Tavana sharing her personal story of mold exposure, and her autonomous process of investigation that led her down the path of healing and integration.

In our conversation:

• Ciera’s personal health journey and how she became curious about mold as a cause
• Navigating bloating, fatigue, brain fog and other symptoms
• How she went through a healing process, even without ever doing testing
• The histamine process that is related to mold reactions, and the function of mast cells
• Aan ancestral and spiritual orientation to tending and preventing mold
• Why tending the nervous system is important in healing histamine responses
• Ciera’s work MUSE, and her upcoming program

Connect with Ciera and MUSE on Instagram, and check out her small-group, personalized support in the winter Ancestral Wellness program -- enrolling now!

It seems that mold toxicity has become far more common in recent years, and as I navigate the effects with my own family, I’m so grateful to find great resources. A couple of them are:

• Book - Toxic: Heal Your Body from Mold Toxicity, Lyme Disease, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, and Chronic Environmental Illness
• Instagram: Dr. Angela Lucterhand has good mold resources in her highlights section
• I used Great Plains Lab for a home mycotoxin test (a bit pricey but it was worth it because my dad didn't believe me until he got the results!)
• A cheap way to test if mycotoxins are impacting your brain with an online visual test -- I'm still understanding how this works, but so far it has been accurate in my experience

Join The Womb Room Community Membership for a deeper dive into body literacy and womb-centered living

SOVEREIGN WOMBAN is my year-long foundational program for radical female health and energetic sovereignty.

What does it practically take to resolve our chronic symptoms, through the lens of Germanic Healing Knowledge? My friend and colleage Freya Kellet and I go back-and-forth sharing our personal stories of instantaneous relief from issues like chronic fatigue, tailbone pain, anorgasmia and more. If you've been exploring GNM but want the real-life look at what it takes to heal, this is for you!

We share stories about: 

• How understanding that consciousness preceding matter allows us to heal instantaneously
• Qiddist’s spontaneous and permanent resolution of her chronic tailbone pain via memory recall
• How to look for our conflicts with softness, rather than grasping and drilling down
• Freya’s first love “freeze” (motor conflict) that caused the chronic tension in her side, butt and leg
• Why you can’t trick your brain into a conflict, and how perceptual alchemy only works if it’s fully coherent
• A bit on Qiddist’s first love ovarian / loss conflict and why stabbing ovarian pain was a welcome resolution
• Anorgasmia and motor conflicts, and how Freya was able to clear the conflict that was preventing clitoral orgasm with her man
• Freya's “chronic fatigue” and the adrenal / decision making conflicts that drive it
• Qiddist’s “food intolerances” and resolving her inability to eat American breakfast foods

FREE CLASS: Shamani: Awaken Your Elemental Magic 

Join The Womb Room Community Membership 

Follow Freya on IG @freyakellet and listen to Freya's German New Medicine Stories podcast 

What if healing trauma didn't have to be drastic or dramatic -- what if your healing could be slow and gentle?

In our first episode for this season, I'm talking with Hannah Grace, a somatic therapist, dance teacher, and if I may say so, an incredibly genuine soul. Her body of work, Web of Grace, walks with women as they discover who they are through somatic trauma healing, embodiment, and deep relationship.

In our conversation we explore:

• Why big cathartic experiences plant medicine ceremonies aren’t always a sustainable pathway for healing
• Your nervous system and our capacity for holding safety and ease (rather than chaos)
• The medicine of subtle and body-based healing
• Why it’s important to “close loops” in our nervous system, and not demonize our fight/flight responses
• How somatics can support us when we can talk through and explain our trauma, but still feel stuck
• How sisterhood and relationship wounds show up in our lives, and how we can tend to our inner child in these moments
• The reparative nature of play as adults

Follow Hannah Grace’s beautiful work on instagram at @webofgrace , check out her website, and be sure not to miss Reclamation, her upcoming 3-month program for reclaiming your full self through somatic, sisterhood and inner-child healing. It starts in just a couple weeks!