Womanhood Wisdom

03/12/2018

On my way to lead a discussion around female s*xuality and anatomy with an amazing group of high school young women and their awesome facilitator. S*x education at its finest if you ask me!

📷: I’m not sure where I got this image, and after looking, I couldn’t find it again. I love it. If anyone knows, please school me!

*xeducator *xeducation

11/04/2017

When your filmmaker husband gets involved in your video making and takes things up a notch. Stay tuned!

10/31/2017

Eeeeep! Yay! This book (Thank you, Leslie Howard!) arrived just as I arrived home from teaching two incredible prenatal/postpartum yoga teachers about postpartum movement and the needs of the postpartum body. I feel so privileged to be able to spend my day in deep, embodied conversation with the body’s core network and two thoughtful individuals shifting the paradigm around postpartum expectation and nourishment. Can’t wait to dive into these pages!

09/20/2017

ANNOUNCEMENT! I've been accepted to an exceptional program that I'll begin next year called Stream: Scar Tissue Remediation, Education And Management. I am working with two incredible teachers - Kimberly Ann Johnson of Magamama and Ellen Heed to receive my certification. Once certified, I will be able to work internally in the pelvis to support women experiencing birth-related, trauma-related, or surgery-related pain in their pelvis or pelvic floor. This includes but is not limited to bladder, cervical, uterine and re**al prolapses, Cesarean scars, interstitial cystitis, vulvodinia, vaginismus, episiotomies, birth tears, prolapse repairs, ge***al reconfiguration, and plastic surgery. This is the cutting edge of comprehensive, holistic healing, and I am so excited to embark on this new phase of my learning and offerings. I'll keep you posted on what I'm learning and when I'm able to offer this incredible work to the world!

Art by: MizEnScen

09/20/2017

Leslie Howard is one of my pelvic floor health teachers and go-tos for resources. I'm so excited that her book, Pelvic Liberation, is going to be available to the world soon! Not only did I contribute to her IndieGoGo campaign to make this book more widely available, but I also get a signed copy of the book as a perk for just $30. If you're called to donate, please do. Let's bring comprehensive pelvic floor health knowledge to the masses! Link in the comments.

09/12/2017

"Healing doesn’t happen overnight; it can take a long time and it can be an arduous journey. But it’s your journey, and...it is important to listen closely to your intuition and to follow the exercise programs that works for you. So the next time you are in a class, and you are promised nirvana, listen carefully to the messages of your body because I can tell you it will not lie to you."

Isa Herrera, MSPT's blog in response to an article circulating about the "magic exercise" that will cure your diastasis in just 10 minutes a day reflects a lot of my own educated opinions and approach to this sacred work with women. If you have or think you have diastasis or pelvic floor challenges, please reach out. You deserve to feel strong in your body, and I can help support you.

As a physical therapist and expert in pe...

08/16/2017

“This is why talking about breastfeeding ultimately leads to talking about the structure of society, That includes hospital maternity care, the quality of maternity leave policies, and the availability of viable options for flexible work scheduling. Add to that an industrialized infant feeding system, a culture that glorifies breast-baring Victoria’s Secret ads but that still deems breastfeeding photos on Facebook to be lewd and controversial, and a health care system where infant formula is given out for free at hospitals and a high-quality breast pump costs $350. Then, somehow, mothers or their bodies are blamed for any breastfeeding failure, when, in fact, the odds are stacked against women before they even begin.”

After reading Kimberly Seals Allers' book, The Big Letdown, Kelly Brogan, MD shares her perspective on how women have been lead down the garden path.

08/02/2017

"That’s why recent discoveries about the moment of conception that reflect more on feminine receptivity, cooperation, and choice, as opposed to conquest, may provide a beautiful perspective into how we may want to reshape our culture to reflect our inner biology. [...] it appears that this process is more about cooperation towards a shared desire to create life."

Science shows the Miracle of Conception is not when the s***m finds the egg, but is the Egg Choosing the S***m. What Lessons does this have for Humanity?

07/31/2017

As someone who struggles with intense anxiety and has experienced the ins and outs of the medical paradigm in more ways than I wish I had, I found Kelly Brogan MD - Holistic Psychiatrist's article poignant for our time. She certainly has some interesting points and gives us a lot to chew on. One of my favorite pieces is this:

"It may be our job, as a community to begin, one by one, to say yes to ourselves, fully, in all ways. Yes to a high level of self-care, to devotion, to the messages our body is attempting to send, to our felt wrongness, to our wild energies, to our very souls slamming the walls of the small boxes we have stuffed them into. But we have to do this together. We have to lock eyes and say – if you do it, I’ll do it." -Kelly Brogan

After the passing of Michael Stone, Kelly Brogan, MD writes an open letter to those in the spiritual community and the truth about psychiatry.

07/14/2017

The culture we consider ourselves part of has everything to do with the choices we make and how we feel about them, and yet we have so many options, and there are so many more perspectives to discover. I love when the cultural veil lifts, and we can truly choose for ourselves: "Probably the most valuable thing about raising my son in Mongolia was that I realized that there are a million different ways to do things, and that I could choose any of them. Throughout my son’s breastfeeding career, I struggled with different issues, and picked up and discarded many ideas and practices, in my search to forge my own style."

In Mongolia, breast milk is not just for babies, it's not only about nutrition, and it's definitely not something you need to be discreet about. It's the stuff Genghis Khan was made of.

06/05/2017

Such a beautiful journey with these women the past two weeks learning to guide and support pregnant women through yoga, movement, and breath. Thank you, Sandra Varas (SansYoga, SansYoga Prenatal ), for your wisdom and for being a role model and proponent of women's community and the need to honor a woman's body wisdom and allow her to access her own primal, sensual instincts. I can't wait to create juicy yoga circles for the prenatal women in my community. If you're in the Agoura, San Fernando and Ventura County areas, stay tuned!

*xuality

05/28/2017

This weekend, I return to where it all began - my home studio of Studio Surya Yoga - for a prenatal yoga training with Sandra of SansYoga. I'm continuing to gather the pieces I desire to support women through pregnancy and the postpartum period (which can be lifelong). I completed my 200-hour yoga teacher training at Surya with the incredible and soulful Yonnus Becker just 4 years ago. I had left my 9-5 and had a summer of pure freedom and possibility. About a year later, I met my beloved and trusted mentor, Lara Catone, at Studio Surya Yoga during a Power and Pleasure workshop she led. I couldn't believe I had found the teacher I had desired, someone doing the work in the world with women that I knew I was destined to do but didn't even have the language to talk about yet. That serendipitously led to my involvement with the incredible community of The Artemis School, a women's school of holistic s*xuality created by Lara. I also found my dear teacher Samantha Akers and the imperative teachings of mindfulness, restorative yoga, and balancing the nervous system. And now, it feels like one cycle of the spiral has come home to itself as I've found my core passion in supporting women to find their own way during the prenatal and postpartum times - holistically, gently, and enthusiastically. I have so much to learn, and I am humbly excited to continue learning forever. AND it feels like an important moment to turn around, reflect on the summer that started it all (though I'm sure it was in the works long before it was in my consciousness), thank the teachers who continue to support me, and take a breath of pride and grounding. I'm where I'm supposed to be. We all are.