In this deeply personal and powerful episode, we’re talking all things cycles, self-leadership, and the untapped wisdom of the female body. Joined by Emily Marson—acupuncturist, clinic director, and founder of Aphrodite Fertility Acupuncture—we dive into how your menstrual cycle can become a blueprint for healing, creativity, and embodied expression.
Karenna and I share our own stories of learning (sometimes the hard way) how to listen to our bodies. From painful periods and burnout to discovering the healing power of acupuncture and cycle-syncing, we’ve walked different paths that led us to the same truth: when you work with your body—not against it—everything changes.
0:02: Welcome to the Fully expressed podcast.
0:03: We are your hosts, Samantha and Karenna.
0:06: This is a show where we invite you into your fullest express self and life, relationships and business.
0:11: We believe that if you crave more, you are meant for more.
0:14: There is room for all of us to be fully expressed.
0:17: Enjoy this new episode.
0:19: Hey, Samantha here.
0:21: Over the years, both Karenna and I have learned, often the hard way, what it really means to listen to our bodies.
0:26: And though she and I have had very Different journeys, they’ve led us to the same truth.
0:30: Your cycle is not something to ignore or fight against.
0:34: It can actually be one of your greatest tools for healing.
0:37: For me, it started when I went off birth control about 10 years ago.
0:41: My cycle was all over the place and I was dealing with intense symptoms.
0:44: Acupuncture literally saved my life.
0:47: It brought back my cycle into balance, and even most recently, I was dealing with a 25 day cycle and I’ve brought it back to 20.
0:54: days.
0:55: It has become one of the most supportive tools in my healing.
0:59: Karenna’s path was a little different.
1:01: For years, she speaks about this a lot, but she pushed through exhaustion, mood swings, pain, thinking that she just had to keep going.
1:08: If you didn’t know, she speaks about burnout because of this.
1:11: But in 2019, she started syncing her life with her cycle, adjusting how she ate, moved, and showed up depending on where she was hormonally, and it literally changed everything.
1:22: A moment that stands out that she spoke about to me was during her Reiki training, she was in serious pain from cramps.
1:29: Her friend, Doctor Kelsey Corbett gave her acupuncture on the spot, and within 30 minutes she felt like herself again.
1:35: That was her big turning point for realizing how powerful it is to actually work with the body and not against it.
1:41: We’re not taught how to honor our cycles, but when we do, it changes everything from our health to how we show up in life.
1:48: Nobody taught us this stuff.
1:50: No one told us that our cycle could be a source of clarity, creativity, and connection, not just something to deal with or hide away from.
1:57: But once we both started honoring these rhythms, everything has begun to shift in our health, in our relationships, and even how we show up in business and.
2:05: Life.
2:06: That’s why we’re so excited about today’s episode with Emily Marson, founder and clinic director of Aphrodite Fertility Acupuncture.
2:13: Her clinic is well known for supporting women on their fertility journey, but what she shares as well in this conversation reaches so far beyond that.
2:21: We talk about how your cycle can become a blueprint, not just for physical health, but for self-expression, intuition and embodiment.
2:28: And if you’re listening and thinking, wow, I have felt that too, or someone pops into your head who needs to hear this, send them this episode.
2:37: Sometimes just knowing there’s another way to move through the world is the beginning of real transformation.
2:42: So let’s dive into this rich and empowering conversation with Emily Marson and explore how your cycle can become one of your greatest tools for healing, creativity and self-leadership.
2:54: I have the best job I do.
2:55: I honestly do.
2:57: Yeah, I mean we just like the main mission is like really to reach women who are really struggling and struggling alone, you know, infertility is still quite taboo, even with your friends and.
3:10: You know there’s so many women like even when they’re going through IVF they’re like giving themselves shots in the bathroom and the girls’ night and then they come back and they just have to sort of pretend like everything’s fine and what we do, we do Eastern medicine and acupuncture which is its own amazing magical place in getting you to your family.
3:32: But also a lot of what we do is being there to sort of hold women in this moment and guide them, give them clear integrated advice because a lot of it’s sort of like Googled Google overwhelm right and get them through something very, very tough and then ultimately to their family.
3:55: It’s really cool.
3:56: It’s amazing, yeah, it must be the best feeling to know that you’re doing acupuncture on this client and she comes to you and says, I’m pregnant.
4:03: Oh my gosh, those are the they are the best days like when they come in and they’re like, I, I’m pregnant.
4:10: I, I haven’t even told my husband yet.
4:14: It’s like, you know, the husband goes off to work or whatever, like, you know, they are at work taking a test and they’ve had so many tests that were negative that they’re just like casually taking it, you know, like they’re not taking it together like you do in sort of the beginning of your fertility journey and then then they have like acupuncture and they’re like, I, I haven’t even told my husband.
4:30: It it’s like so magical.
4:32: Yeah, we really do have the best job.
4:35: Yeah, and I love that you’re doing this too.
4:36: Once you have the best job, you’re also holding women in such a vulnerable time.
4:41: and we’ve talked about this on the podcast before.
4:43: It just feels like what women are struggling with when it comes to trying to get pregnant.
4:48: It’s so different today compared to what it was years ago.
4:52: Like we’re up against so many different Things, factors that are contributing to infertility and so one, it’s like I feel I describe it as like a whiplash, you know, it’s not something you expect.
5:02: Like I think it’s something that I’m like, I’m gonna try and get pregnant and we’re gonna get pregnant and it’s gonna be beautiful and it’s great and then all of a sudden you’re like, I’m really struggling to get pregnant and It’s such a sensitive, again, it’s such a vulnerable time because you’re up against not only your inner conversations through that time, but also trying to be like, well, what’s going on with my body and you’re like a partner, a bestie in that for them.
5:24: Yeah, I mean, we’re basically telling women like you’re not broken.
5:29: There is a reason.
5:30: A lot of times women go to the doctor and they’re just like, Well, we don’t know, so.
5:34: You know, come back when you’re pregnant in a year and you’re like, wait, wait, you know I’ve been trying for 6 months like and or I’ve been, I don’t have, I haven’t had my period in like, you know, 6 weeks and or I spot and all these things and the doctor’s like, come back when you’re pregnant and, and we’re like, no, no, let’s, we’re here to figure out what’s going on and then use eastern medicine and Western medicine we’re really well versed in what’s going on in the western field of fertility.
6:03: To get you to a healthy, happy baby.
6:08: So cool.
6:09: Yeah.
6:10: What are the biggest factors of fertility that you see or like the biggest factors that are that are causing infertility today?
6:19: Yeah, I would say 2, actually 3 big things show up in our clinic.
6:25: , the first and really easiest to treat is what’s called a luteal phase defect, which is when you have, spotting at the end of your cycle, so right before your period.
6:38: If you have, I would say more than 2 days of spotting, you most likely have a luteal phase defect, which means that you don’t have enough progesterone in your luteal phase to hold and secure a pregnancy.
6:50: , and this shows up often, and what we do is women come in and they don’t really know their biochemistry.
6:58: And so for every new patient we sit them down and we draw out like the hormonal rhythms, what’s happening in your brain, the pituitary gland, what’s happening in your ovaries, and what’s happening in your uterus and so we show the flow of hormones as you cycle through 4 or 5 weeks depending or you know it varies, and then we overlay what why let’s say you would have spotting or why you would have a progesterone deficiency and that all really roots back to.
7:28: , how the follicle develops, which then roots back to your pituitary gland and your pituitary gland holds all of the all of the hormones that create rhythms in your body.
7:41: So like your sleep hormones, your stress hormones, and your fertility hormones are all regulated by the pituitary gland.
7:49: And the pituitary really can’t do more than one thing.
7:52: And so if your stress is high or your sleep is off, it’ll prioritize those two things over your hormones and then your hormones become deregulated because the pituitary is like trying to do regulate those other rhythms, yeah.
8:06: And so, OK, so getting back to your question, so luteal phase defect and acupuncture can do like amazing things with that and we can get you pregnant pretty quickly, without a lot of intervention.
8:18: And then the second thing is PCOS polycystic ovarian syndrome, and this is where this is sort of congenital.
8:26: It comes in sort of lineage where there was great famine.
8:31: OK, so back in the tribal days or shortly thereafter, you know, in Europe usually a lot of Eastern Europe and then some Western there was great famine and so what happened was the body found a way to sort of.
8:52: , adjust their hormone profile so that it shut down the ovaries so that you didn’t have to bring in a new baby into a famine, OK?
9:05: and they and the body learned to do this through insulin dis regulation.
9:10: , and so what PCOS at its root is about is insulin actually, and there are insulin receptors on the ovaries and they sort of block the communication of the pituitary to the follicular development, basically like egg maturing, as a way to protect the tribe at the time and it has come through your genetic profile.
9:37: So PCOS is.
9:38: Genetic and at its root is has insulin, which they are just really discovering.
9:45: Yeah, I didn’t know that.
9:45: That’s crazy.
9:47: Yeah, this is actually really interesting, insulin resistance and and famine and hormones all play a role in fertility absolutely.
9:58: And in the on the other opposite side of it, you can see it in when you have a when you’re in a calorie deficit and you’re trying to conceive, your body will also think it’s in famine.
10:10: OK, so if you’re ever trying to conceive it’s not the right time to diet or cut weight because your body says I’m in a calorie deficit, there’s a famine, and we should not bring another baby into the into the tribe and so it’ll just regulate your cycle.
10:27: This is where like women who are Olympic athletes lose their periods because they’re in such a caloric deficit for so long.
10:34: , so that’s PCOS and then, similarly like.
10:42: Low caloric intake and then the third thing that we see is diminished ovarian reserve, which is Basically, your egg reserve that you are born with is lower than it should be for your age.
10:57: and this has to do with a couple of different things.
10:58: It can also be genetic.
11:00: So if your mother went through menopause early, she also had a lower egg reserve.
11:05: , and then there are other things like, autoimmune disease that can quicken the pace of your egg reserve going down or, you know, temporarily like a virus can bring your reserve down for that moment.
11:21: and this is where basically if you are, let’s say 31 and you have your labs drawn, the marker is your AMH.
11:32: And it’s lower than where it should be for a 31 year old.
11:36: and that that doesn’t really have anything to do with the quality of your eggs, but it does tell you that you will go through menopause earlier than your peers.
11:45: And so there is there are decisions to be made about your fertility if you find out that you have diminished ovarian reserve.
11:53: and so we we educate all women on those things and what we can do through acupuncture and herbal medicine.
12:01: Supplements as well and then if we need to bring in Western medicine we can tell you what we recommend and who to see.
12:10: We also see about 50% of our patients are in the middle of IVF so we have like the natural conception patients and then about 50% of our patients come from IVF and it hasn’t worked.
12:23: So they, so they’ve gone through IVS thinking that they could just make embryos and unfortunately it hasn’t happened for them.
12:31: And they’re like I might as well try magic.
12:34: So they come to us they come to us because we’re acupuncturists because they don’t know what we do with they’re like, we hear that we hear that this works.
12:41: , and so we have like a deep knowledge of IVF and STEM and transfer phase and how to play interplay acupuncture into that to increase results and there are big studies on how it does.
12:54: So, yeah, we’re just out there helping women get to their families.
13:01: I love it.
13:03: Let me one question I have, you’re talking, because we’re, you know, a lot of the women that are on here are high achieving, highly strung, or doing all the things, and something that we’re going to get to talk about the entrepreneurship of this as well, which we can talk about.
13:16: But one thing I was so curious, I don’t know why I thought about this, you know, is it because there’s some women out there that are experiencing a lot of stress in their life, a lot of stress in their life, and somehow they still get pregnant.
13:28: Totally.
13:28: And then other people that are very, very stressed out and like they or baby are doing the things and they are calming the nervous system down a little bit more and they’re not getting pregnant.
13:36: And so I think sometimes you can get into the place well.
13:40: It, you know, is there a perfect A + B equals C?
13:43: Absolutely not.
13:44: I just want to hear your perspective on that part in general because it can be so difficult sometimes for women to be like, I just don’t get it.
13:51: Like she’s so much more stressed than I am, but she has like 4 kids.
13:54: I just don’t get it.
13:56: Totally.
13:56: And if anyone, if any patient comes in and and is like, oh, you know, I’m here because my doctor says I need to stress left.
14:01: I’m like that’s bullshit.
14:03: First of all, stop it with that.
14:04: That’s just guilt is what that is and that’s sort of like shaming women into thinking that they’re not like zen enough to get pregnant, OK?
14:12: What?
14:13: What the body does is it has two basic nervous systems, right?
14:17: You have your sympathetic nervous system, which is fight or flight, and your autonomic nervous system, which is rest and digest.
14:23: Your hormone regulation falls under rest and digest, right?
14:27: It’s rhythmic, all that stuff falls under rest and digest.
14:31: So what I say is like you can be stressed and every single one of our patients is a high achiever.
14:36: They come in powerful lawyers, you know, like doctors, even, you know, because they’re like, how can I fix this?
14:41: you know, yeah, they’ll come in because they’re like, acupuncture, let’s do it.
14:46: and, you can be in stress.
14:50: What you have to signal to the body is that there has to be a drop into the the rest and digest.
14:56: You can be in high cortisol.
14:58: But you can’t be in it all the time because the body will prioritize you running from a bear over regulating your hormones.
15:10: And so what we just need you to do is to drop into breakthrough the fight or flight.
15:17: And into the rest and digest to let your FSH, which is the hormone that comes out of your pituitary and stimulates your follicles to grow.
15:26: To pulse from the brain to the ovaries.
15:30: And so to your question, to your point.
15:36: There are like high-powered women and they’re like, I’m, you know, I’m doing all the yoga and I’m doing all the meditation, but there’s still in that like intensity.
15:47: There is still the body, you’re signaling still to the body that it’s in fight or flight, right?
15:54: And so, one thing that acupuncture does really well is like you get on the table, there’s no you can’t you can’t have your phone.
16:01: And the, the needles regulate the parasympathetic nervous system.
16:07: So what we see on these women who were there or rings.
16:11: The biofeedback is that they drop really deeply into like a sleep state, which they may feel like they’re getting in like their attempts at de-stressing, but maybe maybe not actually.
16:25: and so oftentimes we’ll see that actually recorded during the session.
16:29: so you have to you have to really find things that’ll that’ll break.
16:31: You can go right back up if you want, but we really need to let the pituitary signal even for an hour.
16:39: , because staying staying stuck in fight or flight is where the dysregulation comes in.
16:45: And what I love about acupuncture as someone who has done all the things and I was like, I’m going to fix some of the things.
16:51: One thing is that you can get also in the practice of like filling out your calendar and being so busy and what I love about acupuncture, it’s like a container of room, something that you show up for and that you’re just taking care of, which is really nice for some women, you know, at one point you’re like.
17:07: I don’t want to take time.
17:09: I don’t have 20 minutes to put in a breath work session in or like meditation or like do all the things or go to yoga some more.
17:14: This is what acupuncture is so beautiful for is like it is that container for you to deeply drop into this part of the system.
17:22: Totally.
17:23: And I think that to speak sort of to that and I was going to get to that in like the entrepreneurship energetics, but like Oftentimes women are like, OK, I’m gonna go to my massage, and then I’m gonna like, in my massage I’m like thinking about the dentist appointment that I have to go to and then I have to go to my 4 hour hair appointment and then I have to go home and like, you know, like there’s there’s stress in like the self-care over schedule and so I, I encourage my type A, my high achievers to Pull back on the scheduling, like schedule one thing a day because these are like, you know, these are like the Google calendars are like there’s no space and I’m like schedule one thing a day and see how that feels.
18:11: You’re still achieving.
18:12: You can still.
18:14: Blossom like the Dahlia, you don’t have to go straight and linear, right?
18:20: You can be out and in, out and in, and you’re still expanding and achieving.
18:26: It’s just not in this linear trajectory.
18:29: I love it because I worked in the film industry for a while and I was on birth control from like 15 to 25 and I remember when I got off it, like I had so many issues.
18:39: I my period was terrible, all these things, and I found acupuncture and, just, you’re making me miss it.
18:45: Now I’m like I need to come see you.
18:47: there’s nothing like the feeling when you drop in and you’re just so relaxed and I had no idea.
18:51: Like I knew nothing about hormones.
18:52: Like I was never taught any of that.
18:54: I missed sex ed in high school, which they probably didn’t teach you much of that anyways, but I just remember feeling, I didn’t even know how deregulated I was till I got on that, that table and Doctor Jing, she was like, She’s like, you’ve got some problems.
19:07: Like you can calm down.
19:08: So I would love to speak because now like Kurt and I, our our other friend who’s like a hormone expert, I know Kern already did this, but I was new to like tracking your cycle and actually understanding the phases of your cycle, and I know we really want to talk to you about like.
19:23: Utilizing that in your business because I think that’s the next level.
19:26: Like the first level is just knowing you’re just regulated and coming to the acupuncture and getting relaxed, but like, yes, how can we then take that and like use it as a superpower?
19:35: Oh my gosh, and it’s such a superpower.
19:36: OK, so let’s start with a little education you’ve talked about on your podcast before, but OK, so you, the beginning of your cycle is your bleed.
19:44: Often women think that it’s at the end, it’s the beginning, OK.
19:48: And as you come out of your bleed, your estrogen starts to rise.
19:51: OK.
19:51: And estrogen is like this feel good hormone.
19:54: It’s like juicy.
19:55: You’re like, I can get shit done.
19:57: I’m cruising.
19:59: Then you hit ovulation peak estrogen, and then after ovulation, your progesterone rises.
20:04: And so this second half of your cycle, the last two weeks of your cycle, are progesterone dominant.
20:11: OK.
20:11: So but let’s go back to When you’re coming out of your bleed and your estrogen is rising, it’s like springtime, OK?
20:18: You’re feeling so good.
20:20: This is when you like kill a workout.
20:22: You know, like in the second half, you do the same workout and you’re like, why did I how did that why like last week or two weeks ago I like dominated this.
20:30: It’s it’s your hormones, OK?
20:32: It’s, it’s not just your hormones, it’s your biochemistry.
20:35: I like to say that word because I think hormones sort of like people are like, OK, sure, hormones, but it is your actual chemistry.
20:43: OK.
20:43: So estrogen is where in entrepreneurship, you want to It’s like your get shit done phase, OK?
20:52: It’s like batch all of your social.
20:56: It’s plan and schedule.
20:58: It’s create content.
21:00: It’s like the creatrix kind of mentality.
21:04: and then as you come into the height of estrogen, which is ovulation, this is the time you really want to be front facing.
21:12: So in entrepreneurship, You’re you’re really hard to say no to chemically in this time, OK?
21:20: So like the the hormones that are coming out of your skin, OK, these are meant to attract a mate and so it is very hard for people to say no to you in this in this phase at ovulation.
21:32: So if you were ever launching anything, if you are ever pitching investors.
21:39: , if you ever have any bigger major talk to give, you want to schedule it around your ovulation, height of estrogen, because really you’re magnetic.
21:50: And then as you come, it’s awesome.
21:52: Yeah, yeah, and that’s like that’s really yeah it’s really superpower, especially if it’s let’s say in front of you know, a boardroom of men.
22:01: This is the time like your biochemistry is hard to say no to.
22:05: , and then, as your progesterone comes up after you ovulate.
22:11: This is really a time that you turn the cameras on yourself.
22:17: OK?
22:17: This is the editrix.
22:19: OK, so you edit and audit in your business at this point.
22:23: it’s a great time to look at self and self-discipline and personnel.
22:30: This is sort of when you want to go through your team.
22:33: , this would be when you would want to have reviews.
22:36: This is the audit phase of your business.
22:39: What’s working and what’s not working.
22:41: OK?
22:41: A really good time.
22:43: To evaluate spreadsheets and go really deep into work is in your progesterone phase.
22:51: you want to think of like the second half of your cycle is when you’re potentially, let’s say pregnant in in like just the cycle of our job as humans to procreate.
23:01: And so what the body is doing is it’s like it’s preserving, OK?
23:05: And so it’s nurturing inwards.
23:08: So all of the energetics are in.
23:10: Often women hate this period.
23:13: This time of their cycle, because what it’s not is the male hormone matrix of testosterone, which is linear and outward and energetic.
23:23: It’s testosterone and estrogen are very similar.
23:27: So that like that real output that you have in your in your follicular phase, the first half of your cycle, first two weeks, that is similar to testosterone, like the go and get it done and and and I can achieve anything.
23:41: When you go into the second half of your cycle, your progesterone draws in.
23:47: Women often don’t like this part of their cycle because they think they have to perform like testosterone because and it’s you know no no fault of men, but women in the past 50 years, really only in the past 50 years have have entered the matrix of.
24:03: , careers, and so we, we entered into something that had been built for 100 years and so the model is to output in a testosterone way.
24:17: So consistently showing up with the same energy and that is in direct conflict with our progesterone.
24:29: progesterone is is sort of like this the sedative hormone, so like you want to be in bed, you wanna like curl up and just like be on your computer.
24:38: It’s also, I like to say the time when you’re like.
24:41: , you edit the bullshit out of your life and oftentimes, you know, maybe a lot of men complain that women are like more on edge in this.
24:50: I think it’s that we are very tolerant of bullshit in our, in our estrogenic phase and in our progesterone phase we’re like editing the bullshit out versus like we become crazy like no we’re like seeing what’s happening and editing it out and so what I’ve also sort of made it my mission in speaking about.
25:11: The energetics of work output is to try to rela relate it to, to have men get it, OK?
25:18: And so what I like to also bring to the table is that men also cycle, but they cycle daily.
25:24: OK, so their testosterone is highest in the morning.
25:27: And then lowest at night.
25:29: And so I think men can understand those energetics when they think about their day.
25:34: So in the morning they get up, like everything is upwards and outwards and then by the end, most men, especially as they come out their testosterone lowers in their 30s and 40s.
25:46: The sort of crash of the day and they’re like, you know, you can think of them like reading their nose paper and like smoking your pipe at night, right?
25:53: Like that’s the energetics, and so I think a lot of men can can can feel that.
26:00: And so we women have that except it’s monthly.
26:04: So like our morning is the first two weeks of our cycle and then our night for them, our testosterone drop.
26:12: , equal equivalent is our two weeks of our progesterone dropping.
26:19: I think, I think once I started to talk about that and you know with my husband and then in front of these groups that I’ve spoken to men are like, oh, like we should be taught this like we should know a woman’s cycle because it’s it makes your chemical interaction like more authentic like it’s more logical, let’s say in their minds.
26:41: , and so it’s like my mission to get, get this sort of into this is what we should be learning really in sex ed, you know, instead of like how to put a condom on a banana or whatever, I have so many questions.
26:58: First is like entrepreneurial questions.
26:59: So something that I, because I live my life like this too and she’s starting to live a life like that too.
27:04: So like for example, like recording this weekend, you know, we both look at our thing and we’re like, is gonna be bleeding that weekend, but she is feeling great.
27:12: She’s like ovulation.
27:13: And so I’m so curious how do you do that in partnership if both women are kind of honoring because like we’re not on the same.
27:20: Cycle rhythm.
27:21: I probably need to come see you because my cycle is shorter than hers.
27:25: Yeah, so it’s a little bit off kilter.
27:27: yeah, you know, it’s, it’s actually just being in the awareness there is like acceptance, you know, and maybe.
27:38: If you’re bleeding, then you know to take more of the energetic lead in this, even though we can’t all schedule everything layered on top of each other to each other’s rhythms, what you can do is acknowledge where energy outputs may be and then, you know, take ownership of things that might need more energy or more like auditing, right?
28:02: You can be like, hey, why don’t I do.
28:05: This part of the podcasting and you lead in the sort of speaking aspect.
28:12: So it’s not really like Trying to force each other to be on the same schedule.
28:17: It’s like it’s just knowing makes it different.
28:20: Yeah, makes a difference.
28:21: And we did that.
28:22: Yeah, I think that we did that really well.
28:23: I use the word capacity a lot and so we were like I’m coming in with 40% capacity and she’s like, I’m at 90.
28:30: I got you, you know, like, like she uses that.
28:34: Yeah, yeah.
28:35: Oh yeah, that’s right.
28:36: I have heard that.
28:37: but the other question I had is like for someone that’s in corporate or like how do they navigate their day to day when they are being asked to, for example, be sitting at a desk for eight hours all day long grinding and pushing out all month long every single day, or maybe they’re a nurse that Has these 12 hour shifts that they’re having to show up for and they do over 5 days in a row and it’s going to land like right in progesterone.
29:02: So how could someone like that also energy management in those moments if they are in more of like a luteal phase versus a follicular phase or ovulation phase.
29:13: Yeah, I think those two things are a little bit different, like the nurses who have to do the 12 hours, we see a lot of health problems.
29:21: A lot of nurses come in for infertility.
29:24: And I know like you can’t necessarily always change jobs, but you can sort of evaluate its effect on your life and I think that what you can do is conserve as much as you can in your luteal phase what life gives to you again, it’s just sort of acknowledging and not trying to fight it because then if you’re let’s say in your luteal phase and.
29:50: You’re a nurse at an, and so there’s a lot of like extreme output, then you have to go home and on the days off because nurses have like a 4, usually a 4 day schedule really retreat and go back to self and nourish the part that was like what the part that needs that deep rooted attention.
30:17: And not just like go home and like try to get all your like.
30:20: Erin’s done that.
30:21: Aaron’s done that you didn’t get done on your 12 hour shift, right?
30:25: Like you can be conscious about where you are in your cycle and also sort of like it gives you the chance to forgive yourself, right?
30:35: Like, basically if your friend asks you to go out the next night, you can be like, no, no thank you, like, and and be OK with that and not any guilt around not.
30:46: Going and being front facing, you’re like I’m not, I don’t have that capacity, right?
30:51: it’s just really like knowledge is power.
30:54: And then in the corporate aspect, I think like I think the more we talk about it, the more it’ll change.
31:01: , I think that again, like you can.
31:07: have days where you know, deadlines are due.
31:12: But deadlines aren’t usually do like they give you the deadlines to do that day, right?
31:17: You can really, if you look at your schedule in the rhythms of your life, you can really, I think have some control over where you are bringing your energies.
31:32: And it’s not just like your monthly cycle.
31:35: There’s there’s cycles within the seasons and so there’s like all these little loops in these bigger natural energy output loops, That you can really think critically about instead of fighting and being and shaming yourself like why am I not performing as well in winter than I would in high summer like well it’s because your biochemistry is telling you it’s a retreat time and the other thing I forgot to bring up is that in your menstrual phase is you’re in your lowest hormones, lowest levels of hormones.
32:12: And when your body is sort of clear of that biochemistry output.
32:20: You actually have a chance to download from the universe these big changes in your life, right?
32:27: You are so unclouded by the hormone chemistry that there’s a lot of clarity if you’re able to be open to it.
32:40: And a lot of women really hate their periods.
32:45: But I think if you can rewrite the story to be like, this is the time that I am actually going to come through with these big ideas, you might start to change your story around like your bleed.
32:57: I think it’s also when we’re the most tired like they, it’s really like I, there’s usually one day where I’m like I could lay in bed all day today and be just fine, which is interesting because usually in those moments, if you can create them in your life is when you have downloads because you’re not distracted or pushing yourself like you’re trying to.
33:15: I just remember so many times in life, and Karina speaks about this too like we’re just, especially in your twenties, you’re just pushing yourself so hard.
33:21: Like you, I had no idea about my cycle.
33:23: I’m like, why am I so tired?
33:25: Push through it.
33:25: Like, come on, you know, more, more caffeine, more gym, more like more calorie expenditure, yeah, I think yeah comes comes with.
33:34: What comes with age is like your crave for authenticity and nothing is more authentic than what’s happening inside your body, which is pretty powerful to return to.
33:48: , and not to have like any sort of like shame around.
33:54: Totally, yeah, and I love what you said reframing the period too because like even to this day my mother will be like, I’m so glad I don’t have that anymore and just programmed me with this like your period’s the worst thing ever, like all the women in my life, you know, that’s how they viewed it and I felt that in my body, which is probably also contributed to painful periods and like disassociation from my cycle and it is there’s an empowerment that you’re speaking to that really comes from.
34:18: Reframing and recognizing that this is a superpower, this is a gift.
34:21: Like even our friend Doctor Marita was like, this is, this is your superpower, your cycle is your superpower, and if you understand it like to what you’re saying, it can change your whole life and it can really bring magic to your life.
34:33: I mean, we’re, we have a like a portal inside of us, you know, which is crazy, but it’s so true.
34:40: Like we’re the only thing that can bring life to this planet.
34:43: I mean human life, sorry.
34:46: I want to speak to the part, the art that you were talking about like if there’s a deadline due, like how can you like energy management in that.
34:53: I think there’s also where you’re giving people in this structure and it’s literally biologically in our bodies available to us.
35:00: One, it’s there for you to support you, but two, it’s also, giving yourself grace and giving yourself permission and ease in those moments.
35:07: But there’s also this sense of like self-trust that you start to build over time because you’re like, I’m going to get my energy back.
35:14: I’m going to be able to execute on that thing that I really need to execute.
35:17: It’s OK if I give myself energy in today or grace today.
35:21: Instead of pushing myself so much that then tomorrow I’m literally not gonna be able to show up.
35:26: And I think sometimes that’s where our bodies can show us.
35:29: They’re like giving us the symptoms.
35:30: It’s like you’re tired, taking it easy, you can’t focus as much.
35:34: Maybe your motivation is down.
35:36: And then you really don’t want to be the, I don’t no longer want to be the person that, for example, keeps pushing and then all of a sudden my body’s like, you’re not getting out of bed today.
35:45: You’re staying home because you’re either sick, you have a headache, and you’re done and then you can’t really work on the thing that you want to work on anyways.
35:52: Totally.
35:53: And I think it again another reframe has to sort of happen where you trust.
35:59: That you will get stuff done and you will get it done probably with more vigor than you would if you just burned out through the like a linear model.
36:11: And that a retraction and an expansion leads to greater growth than for women than a linear model.
36:20: The way I sort of like to also explain it is like your lungs expand and contract.
36:26: And so estrogen, let’s say, is the deep breath in, where the lungs expand and progesterone is the breath out when it contracts.
36:36: , and when women ignore the progesterone, the breath out, what it feels like is this.
36:44: And then they’re like, oh my God, I have so much anxiety, because that’s literally what taking a breath in without a breath out feels like.
36:52: And so if you can visualize that, like you need the retraction.
36:57: To feel vigorous, like a full functioning human and even like a efervescent human you need the breath out too.
37:08: You need the progesterone otherwise it gets caught in anxiety and I think a lot of women are like, I just need estrogen.
37:16: I like I’m only living in estrogen only breath in where my lungs expand and then they get caught in a lot of anxiety.
37:23: I loved that.
37:24: That was amazing.
37:24: , I have a question as to like how can women.
37:30: That are in those stages, what can you do to your body support to like optimize that time in your cycle?
37:36: The second half.
37:37: Anytime.
37:37: Oh, all of them.
37:39: Oh yeah.
37:41: menstruating to follicular to ovulation, what can we be doing during those weeks?
37:46: I think if I think if you think about the energetics, you can live your life to sort of make it flourish.
37:54: So, OK, so like in your estrogenic phase, your spring time, think of the things that you do in springtime where you feel really good.
38:02: so it’s really active time in your cycle.
38:05: You want to do like the HIT workouts, you wanna do.
38:09: The cardio like you will feel really good.
38:13: you want to get sunlight in your eyes, you want to go outside and breathe in the grass, right?
38:23: OK, and then, you actually, this is a great time.
38:28: You actually don’t need as many calories in this time, so like.
38:31: If you’re eating lighter meals, this is, you’ll feel better, and then you and then in like the second half of your cycle.
38:40: You’re in your winter, so you want to do the things that you think of in winter.
38:42: You want to sort of retreat, you want to eat the hearty meals.
38:45: You do need more calories in this time to support your lining.
38:51: I think they, I think they’ve measured it.
38:52: I think it’s like 297 more calories you need in this part.
38:57: This is why you’re hungrier, because also you’re not listening to that need.
39:01: So then your body’s like, hey, hey, hey, like I need like, I’m hungry.
39:04: Give me more calories.
39:08: And so you want to eat like the really nutrient dense foods, the warm cooked foods, and this is the time to stay grounded in your exercise.
39:17: So by grounded I mean matte.
39:20: Based movement like Pilates and and yoga and heated things where it’s really nurturing.
39:27: , and then of course, like we talked about like scheduling your energetics at work out, that’ll that’ll nurture your hor hormones and you, you will feel better.
39:39: So in that, when’s the best time like because I know when I first started acupuncture, I went once a week, then I went once a month.
39:46: So what’s the best time of your phase to come for acupuncture if you’re not trying to get pregnant because I know that’s a different situation, but if you’re trying to master the energy of these like really embracing your cycle.
39:56: Good question.
39:57: I think so everything really comes down to when FSH is initiating follicular development.
40:06: OK.
40:06: So it comes down from the pituitary gland and it signals to the follicles, which are basically sacs that hold an egg to grow an egg and you have a handful of follicles that are grown each cycle.
40:18: And if your follicles don’t grow well, then they will give off.
40:25: What happens in the after there’s ovulation, one of the follicles collapses and becomes what’s called the corpus luteum.
40:32: This is why your luteal phase is called luteal.
40:36: So the corpus luteum forms from a follicle.
40:41: And it emits progesterone and so if your follicular development is not robust, then the corpus luteum won’t emit enough progesterone and this is where you have sort of the symptoms of PMS Progesterone is deficient and it can’t bridle excess estrogen.
41:03: And so then you have these estrogenic symptoms that are notorious for the luteal phase like headaches and pain and cramping and mood changes and things like that.
41:16: This is those are excess estrogen and deficient progesterone, too little progesterone won’t bridle.
41:24: , estrogen enough.
41:25: So backing that all up, it really comes from how well your pituitary can send down follicular stimulating hormone or FSH to develop out the the follicle as well.
41:39: So that is usually.
41:42: Right after your period, OK, when FSH is really surging down the hormones in order for the follicle to develop well.
41:51: So if you’re only gonna come once a month and you want to feel better and you want to take advantage of like hormone regulation, I would say really right in the 3 or 4 days after your bleed stops.
42:03: That’s different for every woman, but like on a typical cycle, let’s say cycle day 7 through 10 would be.
42:11: Perfect to catch you so that we can stimulate.
42:14: Follicular follicular stimulating hormones, robustness and get those follicles to be really juicy because they affect progesterone in the end.
42:22: Sign me up.
42:22: I know I’m I’m like, oh, I’m gonna get my period two weeks I’ll be there.
42:27: I asked selfishly for myself.
42:29: You live downtown, is that right?
42:30: Oh, OK, yeah, yeah, close enough, yeah.
42:34: I have a studio that I go to in Hillcrest, yeah, you were in Hill.
42:42: Yeah, perfect.
42:42: I’ll really cute.
42:42: We do.
42:42: I mean, I also think that like aesthetics and spaces in your healing and so often, like traditional Chinese medicine.
42:56: doesn’t take into account necessarily like a really warm and feminine space and so we went back to where I went in LA and it was sweet.
43:05: She had a, I mean she did fertility mainly but like she had a wall full of pictures of kids that she’d helped conceive, but then it was just.
43:13: So stark and cold and like the paper on the table and I’m like, OK, I think like I, I am so sensitive to my surroundings that like I, a lot of the things that I’ve decided in my business journey with my clinic is like what makes me feel good and so like a really warm cozy we have like rugs and mauves and pinks and plants everywhere and like you just want to step in and be like.
43:40: You’re already taking a deep breath before you even you’re exhaling, right?
43:44: You’re getting that deep inward energy that it’s it’s a priority of mine in business for sure, the space.
43:51: I love that.
43:52: I appreciate that so much because it does make a huge difference.
43:55: Like you want to feel invited and warm and we tried to do that with this space too.
44:00: Yeah, you should have seen it before.
44:02: Oh.
44:05: about all the plants.
44:07: in regards to hormones or anything we talked about, is there any like last minute like little dates that you want to share with the audience that you think would be super important?
44:17: OK, so one thing that’s not well known and every podcast that I’ve been on and I’ve sort of spoken about it, I’m trying to spread the word, but we spoke briefly off camera about endocrine disruptors, but lavender is an endocrine disruptor.
44:30: Oh, you know, they don’t know.
44:33: I didn’t know that.
44:34: OK, yeah, I heard that recently, so like in the lavender on every night.
44:38: I know.
44:39: So what lavender does is it actually attaches to estrogen receptors, so it makes more estrogen.
44:45: Oh my God, and I struggle with high estrogen.
44:48: I’m glad I asked the question.
44:51: Yeah, not well known even in like the wellness industries, but what happened was there was a pediatrician and a couple of his boy patients came in and they were having like breast development and they were pre-pubescent, so they didn’t have any hormones running in their body and he was like, what’s the what’s the common denominator between these two boys?
45:11: And the only thing that he could find was that they were both putting like over the counter lavender lotion on their body at night like where their moms were or whatever.
45:18: And so he threw it out there to like the academia and.
45:23: A couple of years later, university picked it up and studied laminar molecularly, and what they found was that it sits right on top of estrogen receptors.
45:32: And so I’m mind blown right now.
45:34: I literally put it on every night, right, right.
45:38: You are not alone, right?
45:40: So and I take progesterone.
45:41: I don’t know what I’m doing.
45:44: Nice.
45:44: I mean, I think that there’s a place for progesterone for sure, but lavender, excess estrogen is no doesn’t really do, yeah, doesn’t you’re having heart attacks.
45:58: Oh no.
46:00: I’m gonna find my husband because he brought it into our nighttime routine.
46:04: I’m kidding.
46:04: Oh, excess estrogen doesn’t feel good.
46:08: Like estrogen, you want to be in like a nice middle ground and so any excess or deficiency will make you feel poorly.
46:16: And so like in menopause, it’s deficiency of estrogen, so you do want to bring your estrogen up but like adding.
46:23: A lavender onto a level of estrogen that’s already making sense for your body is just going to flare those like estrogenic symptoms and those things can also show up in like tissue growth, so polyps and fibroids and so will you share some.
46:38: High estrogen symptoms because I know they’re similar to other symptoms like what are some of the things you ask or look for in patients when you think they might or suspect they might have high estrogen?
46:48: Yeah, totally, like migraines before your period, big estrogen symptom.
46:53: , this is sort of one that is clinical.
46:57: I have never studied it, but what I see a lot of excess estrogen is actually like stuffy nose, like chronic stuffy nose.
47:04: So this happens in the correlation that I made is that in pregnancy, most women get stuffy nose and it’s Because of like such big estrogen levels, but if you are, you have chronic like like can ever, you always feel like a little bit swollen here you’re out like allergies always there even sort of when you take an allergy pill, it’s still like stuffy.
47:27: So estrogen pulls in water.
47:29: It holds in water.
47:30: This is why like in pregnancy you swell because you have like so much estrogen in you.
47:35: , and so it goes, the little, the water that it draws in goes to the little spaces and oftentimes that’s in your sinuses.
47:42: So that that’s just sort of my observation as an acupuncturist.
47:46: Our job is to look at patterns basically, and then, cramping, yeah, pain and distention.
47:57: To the degree that could it be like endometriosis, so endometriosis is an estrogenic tissue disorder, so are fibroids and polyps.
48:05: So anytime there’s excess tissue, that’s estrogen because it’s proliferative in that it makes cells divide and add cells to the tissue.
48:18: OK, so excess cells shows up in these tissue disorders and that’s and and cell growth.
48:25: Lining growth comes from estrogen.
48:27: So if you have endometriosis, you definitely have excess estrogen.
48:31: , or if you have pain and cramping, you might have adenomyosis, which is similar, but both are estrogenic in nature.
48:41: , and then let’s see, what are the other big estrogen signs?
48:47: I mean, swings of mood.
48:49: OK.
48:51: again, estrogen is upward and outward, and if you don’t have progesterone sort of countering it, you’ll feel like you’re on a roller coaster with your emotions upward and outwards, right?
49:05: This is high estrogen.
49:08: In low estrogen, so the, the key to low estrogen symptoms is like fluid deficiencies.
49:16: So that looks like.
49:17: , you know, like.
49:21: Actual vaginal fluid deficiencies, but it also looks like at night you’re supposed to be grounded by your blood and your yin in Chinese medicine, and when you’re not grounded by your fluids, then heat rises and so you will have these big hot flashes.
49:41: you’ll have night sweating.
49:43: This is low estrogen signs and symptoms.
49:47: It also has like a mood component though as well.
49:49: Anytime estrogen flares or goes down, it’s sort of like anytime there’s a big surge or decrease that transition will come with mood disorder, and what we want is even hormones, right?
50:06: Like landing sort of in the middle here.
50:09: And that’s where you feel the best.
50:12: So good.
50:13: I’m glad you asked that question.
50:14: Yeah, I have one more question.
50:16: Do we have time?
50:16: I think we have time.
50:18: my last question would be, can you share like your most inspiring, hopefully it won’t be that long question, but share your most inspiring like fertility story.
50:27: Sure, yeah, that’s there’s so many, but the one that I think that comes to mind is we had a patient come in.
50:34: And she has diminished ovarian reserve.
50:36: She’s in her 30s and she was told by her doctor, like, you have to do IVF, you know, so she did it.
50:42: So she was in the middle of IVF and she just couldn’t get embryos made.
50:50: She ended up having, we took her through the process of getting one embryo made.
50:55: And while she was waiting, so that was a success there in itself because her, she had previously had many cycles and you know these cycles are like you know 200 each.
51:06: Yeah, yeah, the stem phase of IVF, so there’s two phases.
51:11: There’s stimulation where you make an embryo and then there’s transfer when you implant the embryo into the uterus.
51:16: So we, she had maybe, I don’t know, 3 or 4 cycles where she was unable to make an embryo.
51:23: We stepped in, she came to see us.
51:25: We got her to one embryo, and when she was waiting for her transfer phase to come.
51:31: They usually have like a month or 6 weeks before you transfer your embryo.
51:35: She was still coming in and then she got naturally pregnant and it was just like, I was just like, yes, this is, this is like this is the chef’s kiss of where we can come in and like change lives because now not only she has her daughter now, she has an embryo waiting to make her family complete because she did have diminished ovarian reserves, so she was going heading towards menopause and now she has the chance to have The the two, yeah, the two that she that she really did want.
52:06: Yeah, I know it’s so it’s so wonderful.
52:10: But that’s a great story.
52:11: Yeah, yeah.
52:13: The one question that we ask all of our guests is more about you.
52:17: I wish I know we get to know more about you, but the question is, like, where in your life do you feel called to be more fully expressed?
52:24: So it be life, relationships, health, business, whatever you want.
52:28: I mean business.
52:30: I.
52:31: I want to, I guess, fully expressed to me means like I have.
52:37: I can speak on how to make women feel more aligned in their life, and I just want to reach as many people as I can.
52:47: And so I want to express to women that like your your hormones are not something to be fought and that you can actually go further than you thought you could with like a deep knowledge of your biochemistry and Oh, I just want to, I just want to reach as many people as I can.
53:08: So I’m hitting like the podcast trail and just trying to we hold events at our space for entrepreneurs like every quarter with the solstices and equinoxes and so.
53:20: We’re trying to bring women together and have them feel more authentically aligned with themselves.
53:28: It’s so good.
53:29: That’s amazing.
53:30: That’s beautiful.
53:31: Thank you so much.
53:32: Yeah, I mean this has been absolutely incredible and I love this conversation so much.
53:37: I feel like you’re also so well educated and well versed and you’re such a great teacher.
53:40: I also want to express that like the way that you teach or the example.
53:43: that you shared, like it’s so easy to follow.
53:47: And so I appreciate you coming on.
53:48: I love doing that too, yeah, if we have like a whiteboard and we you know I would be like, I love to, yeah, make it tangible.
53:58: So yeah, yeah.
54:00: Where can people find you?
54:01: Yes, we are Aphrodite fertility.com and then all of our handles are Aphrodite fertility.
54:07: Amazing thank you you’re in San Diego.
54:10: Go check her out.
54:12: Come on in.
54:13: I love it.
54:13: Yeah, thank you.
54:14: Yeah, thanks for having me.
54:16: Today’s conversation is a powerful reminder that our bodies aren’t something to fight against.
54:20: They’re something to partner with.
54:22: It’s easy to feel like we need to push harder or do more to be successful or feel whole.
54:26: But maybe, as Emily shared, it’s less about pushing and more about listening.
54:31: Maybe it’s Starts with simply noticing how you feel in each phase of your cycle.
54:35: Maybe it’s giving yourself permission to rest, to create, to be magnetic, or to reflect exactly when your body is asking for it.
54:44: Remember, tuning into your cycle doesn’t have to be a massive overhaul.
54:48: Small shifts, tracking your energy, honoring how you feel, scheduling with intention, can create a profound ripple effect.
54:55: These small acts.
54:56: Of self-respect and awareness can lead to a more aligned, energized, and fully expressed version of you.
55:03: Thank you so much for tuning in.
55:04: We really appreciate you being here.
55:06: If you enjoyed this episode, we’d be grateful if you could leave us a review and share it with a friend.
55:12: Also, we would love to hear from you.
55:14: Reach out to us on Instagram and let us know where you feel inspired to express yourself as you embrace this next era.
55:21: We’re here to support you and encourage you.
55:24: Before we go, we want to remind you that you are powerful and deserving of fully expressing who you are.
55:30: Embracing your journey toward authenticity is a vital part of that process, and we’re grateful to be alongside you.
55:36: If you’re looking to dive deeper.
55:37: Connect with others who celebrate their true selves.
55:40: We invite you to join our community.
55:42: It’s a virtual space for connection and accountability where you can share your experiences and grow together.
55:48: You can find the link in our show notes.
55:50: We can’t wait to welcome you.
55:52: See you on the next one.
0:03: We are your hosts, Samantha and Karenna.
0:06: This is a show where we invite you into your fullest express self and life, relationships and business.
0:11: We believe that if you crave more, you are meant for more.
0:14: There is room for all of us to be fully expressed.
0:17: Enjoy this new episode.
0:19: Hey, Samantha here.
0:21: Over the years, both Karenna and I have learned, often the hard way, what it really means to listen to our bodies.
0:26: And though she and I have had very Different journeys, they’ve led us to the same truth.
0:30: Your cycle is not something to ignore or fight against.
0:34: It can actually be one of your greatest tools for healing.
0:37: For me, it started when I went off birth control about 10 years ago.
0:41: My cycle was all over the place and I was dealing with intense symptoms.
0:44: Acupuncture literally saved my life.
0:47: It brought back my cycle into balance, and even most recently, I was dealing with a 25 day cycle and I’ve brought it back to 20.
0:54: days.
0:55: It has become one of the most supportive tools in my healing.
0:59: Karenna’s path was a little different.
1:01: For years, she speaks about this a lot, but she pushed through exhaustion, mood swings, pain, thinking that she just had to keep going.
1:08: If you didn’t know, she speaks about burnout because of this.
1:11: But in 2019, she started syncing her life with her cycle, adjusting how she ate, moved, and showed up depending on where she was hormonally, and it literally changed everything.
1:22: A moment that stands out that she spoke about to me was during her Reiki training, she was in serious pain from cramps.
1:29: Her friend, Doctor Kelsey Corbett gave her acupuncture on the spot, and within 30 minutes she felt like herself again.
1:35: That was her big turning point for realizing how powerful it is to actually work with the body and not against it.
1:41: We’re not taught how to honor our cycles, but when we do, it changes everything from our health to how we show up in life.
1:48: Nobody taught us this stuff.
1:50: No one told us that our cycle could be a source of clarity, creativity, and connection, not just something to deal with or hide away from.
1:57: But once we both started honoring these rhythms, everything has begun to shift in our health, in our relationships, and even how we show up in business and.
2:05: Life.
2:06: That’s why we’re so excited about today’s episode with Emily Marson, founder and clinic director of Aphrodite Fertility Acupuncture.
2:13: Her clinic is well known for supporting women on their fertility journey, but what she shares as well in this conversation reaches so far beyond that.
2:21: We talk about how your cycle can become a blueprint, not just for physical health, but for self-expression, intuition and embodiment.
2:28: And if you’re listening and thinking, wow, I have felt that too, or someone pops into your head who needs to hear this, send them this episode.
2:37: Sometimes just knowing there’s another way to move through the world is the beginning of real transformation.
2:42: So let’s dive into this rich and empowering conversation with Emily Marson and explore how your cycle can become one of your greatest tools for healing, creativity and self-leadership.
2:54: I have the best job I do.
2:55: I honestly do.
2:57: Yeah, I mean we just like the main mission is like really to reach women who are really struggling and struggling alone, you know, infertility is still quite taboo, even with your friends and.
3:10: You know there’s so many women like even when they’re going through IVF they’re like giving themselves shots in the bathroom and the girls’ night and then they come back and they just have to sort of pretend like everything’s fine and what we do, we do Eastern medicine and acupuncture which is its own amazing magical place in getting you to your family.
3:32: But also a lot of what we do is being there to sort of hold women in this moment and guide them, give them clear integrated advice because a lot of it’s sort of like Googled Google overwhelm right and get them through something very, very tough and then ultimately to their family.
3:55: It’s really cool.
3:56: It’s amazing, yeah, it must be the best feeling to know that you’re doing acupuncture on this client and she comes to you and says, I’m pregnant.
4:03: Oh my gosh, those are the they are the best days like when they come in and they’re like, I, I’m pregnant.
4:10: I, I haven’t even told my husband yet.
4:14: It’s like, you know, the husband goes off to work or whatever, like, you know, they are at work taking a test and they’ve had so many tests that were negative that they’re just like casually taking it, you know, like they’re not taking it together like you do in sort of the beginning of your fertility journey and then then they have like acupuncture and they’re like, I, I haven’t even told my husband.
4:30: It it’s like so magical.
4:32: Yeah, we really do have the best job.
4:35: Yeah, and I love that you’re doing this too.
4:36: Once you have the best job, you’re also holding women in such a vulnerable time.
4:41: and we’ve talked about this on the podcast before.
4:43: It just feels like what women are struggling with when it comes to trying to get pregnant.
4:48: It’s so different today compared to what it was years ago.
4:52: Like we’re up against so many different Things, factors that are contributing to infertility and so one, it’s like I feel I describe it as like a whiplash, you know, it’s not something you expect.
5:02: Like I think it’s something that I’m like, I’m gonna try and get pregnant and we’re gonna get pregnant and it’s gonna be beautiful and it’s great and then all of a sudden you’re like, I’m really struggling to get pregnant and It’s such a sensitive, again, it’s such a vulnerable time because you’re up against not only your inner conversations through that time, but also trying to be like, well, what’s going on with my body and you’re like a partner, a bestie in that for them.
5:24: Yeah, I mean, we’re basically telling women like you’re not broken.
5:29: There is a reason.
5:30: A lot of times women go to the doctor and they’re just like, Well, we don’t know, so.
5:34: You know, come back when you’re pregnant in a year and you’re like, wait, wait, you know I’ve been trying for 6 months like and or I’ve been, I don’t have, I haven’t had my period in like, you know, 6 weeks and or I spot and all these things and the doctor’s like, come back when you’re pregnant and, and we’re like, no, no, let’s, we’re here to figure out what’s going on and then use eastern medicine and Western medicine we’re really well versed in what’s going on in the western field of fertility.
6:03: To get you to a healthy, happy baby.
6:08: So cool.
6:09: Yeah.
6:10: What are the biggest factors of fertility that you see or like the biggest factors that are that are causing infertility today?
6:19: Yeah, I would say 2, actually 3 big things show up in our clinic.
6:25: , the first and really easiest to treat is what’s called a luteal phase defect, which is when you have, spotting at the end of your cycle, so right before your period.
6:38: If you have, I would say more than 2 days of spotting, you most likely have a luteal phase defect, which means that you don’t have enough progesterone in your luteal phase to hold and secure a pregnancy.
6:50: , and this shows up often, and what we do is women come in and they don’t really know their biochemistry.
6:58: And so for every new patient we sit them down and we draw out like the hormonal rhythms, what’s happening in your brain, the pituitary gland, what’s happening in your ovaries, and what’s happening in your uterus and so we show the flow of hormones as you cycle through 4 or 5 weeks depending or you know it varies, and then we overlay what why let’s say you would have spotting or why you would have a progesterone deficiency and that all really roots back to.
7:28: , how the follicle develops, which then roots back to your pituitary gland and your pituitary gland holds all of the all of the hormones that create rhythms in your body.
7:41: So like your sleep hormones, your stress hormones, and your fertility hormones are all regulated by the pituitary gland.
7:49: And the pituitary really can’t do more than one thing.
7:52: And so if your stress is high or your sleep is off, it’ll prioritize those two things over your hormones and then your hormones become deregulated because the pituitary is like trying to do regulate those other rhythms, yeah.
8:06: And so, OK, so getting back to your question, so luteal phase defect and acupuncture can do like amazing things with that and we can get you pregnant pretty quickly, without a lot of intervention.
8:18: And then the second thing is PCOS polycystic ovarian syndrome, and this is where this is sort of congenital.
8:26: It comes in sort of lineage where there was great famine.
8:31: OK, so back in the tribal days or shortly thereafter, you know, in Europe usually a lot of Eastern Europe and then some Western there was great famine and so what happened was the body found a way to sort of.
8:52: , adjust their hormone profile so that it shut down the ovaries so that you didn’t have to bring in a new baby into a famine, OK?
9:05: and they and the body learned to do this through insulin dis regulation.
9:10: , and so what PCOS at its root is about is insulin actually, and there are insulin receptors on the ovaries and they sort of block the communication of the pituitary to the follicular development, basically like egg maturing, as a way to protect the tribe at the time and it has come through your genetic profile.
9:37: So PCOS is.
9:38: Genetic and at its root is has insulin, which they are just really discovering.
9:45: Yeah, I didn’t know that.
9:45: That’s crazy.
9:47: Yeah, this is actually really interesting, insulin resistance and and famine and hormones all play a role in fertility absolutely.
9:58: And in the on the other opposite side of it, you can see it in when you have a when you’re in a calorie deficit and you’re trying to conceive, your body will also think it’s in famine.
10:10: OK, so if you’re ever trying to conceive it’s not the right time to diet or cut weight because your body says I’m in a calorie deficit, there’s a famine, and we should not bring another baby into the into the tribe and so it’ll just regulate your cycle.
10:27: This is where like women who are Olympic athletes lose their periods because they’re in such a caloric deficit for so long.
10:34: , so that’s PCOS and then, similarly like.
10:42: Low caloric intake and then the third thing that we see is diminished ovarian reserve, which is Basically, your egg reserve that you are born with is lower than it should be for your age.
10:57: and this has to do with a couple of different things.
10:58: It can also be genetic.
11:00: So if your mother went through menopause early, she also had a lower egg reserve.
11:05: , and then there are other things like, autoimmune disease that can quicken the pace of your egg reserve going down or, you know, temporarily like a virus can bring your reserve down for that moment.
11:21: and this is where basically if you are, let’s say 31 and you have your labs drawn, the marker is your AMH.
11:32: And it’s lower than where it should be for a 31 year old.
11:36: and that that doesn’t really have anything to do with the quality of your eggs, but it does tell you that you will go through menopause earlier than your peers.
11:45: And so there is there are decisions to be made about your fertility if you find out that you have diminished ovarian reserve.
11:53: and so we we educate all women on those things and what we can do through acupuncture and herbal medicine.
12:01: Supplements as well and then if we need to bring in Western medicine we can tell you what we recommend and who to see.
12:10: We also see about 50% of our patients are in the middle of IVF so we have like the natural conception patients and then about 50% of our patients come from IVF and it hasn’t worked.
12:23: So they, so they’ve gone through IVS thinking that they could just make embryos and unfortunately it hasn’t happened for them.
12:31: And they’re like I might as well try magic.
12:34: So they come to us they come to us because we’re acupuncturists because they don’t know what we do with they’re like, we hear that we hear that this works.
12:41: , and so we have like a deep knowledge of IVF and STEM and transfer phase and how to play interplay acupuncture into that to increase results and there are big studies on how it does.
12:54: So, yeah, we’re just out there helping women get to their families.
13:01: I love it.
13:03: Let me one question I have, you’re talking, because we’re, you know, a lot of the women that are on here are high achieving, highly strung, or doing all the things, and something that we’re going to get to talk about the entrepreneurship of this as well, which we can talk about.
13:16: But one thing I was so curious, I don’t know why I thought about this, you know, is it because there’s some women out there that are experiencing a lot of stress in their life, a lot of stress in their life, and somehow they still get pregnant.
13:28: Totally.
13:28: And then other people that are very, very stressed out and like they or baby are doing the things and they are calming the nervous system down a little bit more and they’re not getting pregnant.
13:36: And so I think sometimes you can get into the place well.
13:40: It, you know, is there a perfect A + B equals C?
13:43: Absolutely not.
13:44: I just want to hear your perspective on that part in general because it can be so difficult sometimes for women to be like, I just don’t get it.
13:51: Like she’s so much more stressed than I am, but she has like 4 kids.
13:54: I just don’t get it.
13:56: Totally.
13:56: And if anyone, if any patient comes in and and is like, oh, you know, I’m here because my doctor says I need to stress left.
14:01: I’m like that’s bullshit.
14:03: First of all, stop it with that.
14:04: That’s just guilt is what that is and that’s sort of like shaming women into thinking that they’re not like zen enough to get pregnant, OK?
14:12: What?
14:13: What the body does is it has two basic nervous systems, right?
14:17: You have your sympathetic nervous system, which is fight or flight, and your autonomic nervous system, which is rest and digest.
14:23: Your hormone regulation falls under rest and digest, right?
14:27: It’s rhythmic, all that stuff falls under rest and digest.
14:31: So what I say is like you can be stressed and every single one of our patients is a high achiever.
14:36: They come in powerful lawyers, you know, like doctors, even, you know, because they’re like, how can I fix this?
14:41: you know, yeah, they’ll come in because they’re like, acupuncture, let’s do it.
14:46: and, you can be in stress.
14:50: What you have to signal to the body is that there has to be a drop into the the rest and digest.
14:56: You can be in high cortisol.
14:58: But you can’t be in it all the time because the body will prioritize you running from a bear over regulating your hormones.
15:10: And so what we just need you to do is to drop into breakthrough the fight or flight.
15:17: And into the rest and digest to let your FSH, which is the hormone that comes out of your pituitary and stimulates your follicles to grow.
15:26: To pulse from the brain to the ovaries.
15:30: And so to your question, to your point.
15:36: There are like high-powered women and they’re like, I’m, you know, I’m doing all the yoga and I’m doing all the meditation, but there’s still in that like intensity.
15:47: There is still the body, you’re signaling still to the body that it’s in fight or flight, right?
15:54: And so, one thing that acupuncture does really well is like you get on the table, there’s no you can’t you can’t have your phone.
16:01: And the, the needles regulate the parasympathetic nervous system.
16:07: So what we see on these women who were there or rings.
16:11: The biofeedback is that they drop really deeply into like a sleep state, which they may feel like they’re getting in like their attempts at de-stressing, but maybe maybe not actually.
16:25: and so oftentimes we’ll see that actually recorded during the session.
16:29: so you have to you have to really find things that’ll that’ll break.
16:31: You can go right back up if you want, but we really need to let the pituitary signal even for an hour.
16:39: , because staying staying stuck in fight or flight is where the dysregulation comes in.
16:45: And what I love about acupuncture as someone who has done all the things and I was like, I’m going to fix some of the things.
16:51: One thing is that you can get also in the practice of like filling out your calendar and being so busy and what I love about acupuncture, it’s like a container of room, something that you show up for and that you’re just taking care of, which is really nice for some women, you know, at one point you’re like.
17:07: I don’t want to take time.
17:09: I don’t have 20 minutes to put in a breath work session in or like meditation or like do all the things or go to yoga some more.
17:14: This is what acupuncture is so beautiful for is like it is that container for you to deeply drop into this part of the system.
17:22: Totally.
17:23: And I think that to speak sort of to that and I was going to get to that in like the entrepreneurship energetics, but like Oftentimes women are like, OK, I’m gonna go to my massage, and then I’m gonna like, in my massage I’m like thinking about the dentist appointment that I have to go to and then I have to go to my 4 hour hair appointment and then I have to go home and like, you know, like there’s there’s stress in like the self-care over schedule and so I, I encourage my type A, my high achievers to Pull back on the scheduling, like schedule one thing a day because these are like, you know, these are like the Google calendars are like there’s no space and I’m like schedule one thing a day and see how that feels.
18:11: You’re still achieving.
18:12: You can still.
18:14: Blossom like the Dahlia, you don’t have to go straight and linear, right?
18:20: You can be out and in, out and in, and you’re still expanding and achieving.
18:26: It’s just not in this linear trajectory.
18:29: I love it because I worked in the film industry for a while and I was on birth control from like 15 to 25 and I remember when I got off it, like I had so many issues.
18:39: I my period was terrible, all these things, and I found acupuncture and, just, you’re making me miss it.
18:45: Now I’m like I need to come see you.
18:47: there’s nothing like the feeling when you drop in and you’re just so relaxed and I had no idea.
18:51: Like I knew nothing about hormones.
18:52: Like I was never taught any of that.
18:54: I missed sex ed in high school, which they probably didn’t teach you much of that anyways, but I just remember feeling, I didn’t even know how deregulated I was till I got on that, that table and Doctor Jing, she was like, She’s like, you’ve got some problems.
19:07: Like you can calm down.
19:08: So I would love to speak because now like Kurt and I, our our other friend who’s like a hormone expert, I know Kern already did this, but I was new to like tracking your cycle and actually understanding the phases of your cycle, and I know we really want to talk to you about like.
19:23: Utilizing that in your business because I think that’s the next level.
19:26: Like the first level is just knowing you’re just regulated and coming to the acupuncture and getting relaxed, but like, yes, how can we then take that and like use it as a superpower?
19:35: Oh my gosh, and it’s such a superpower.
19:36: OK, so let’s start with a little education you’ve talked about on your podcast before, but OK, so you, the beginning of your cycle is your bleed.
19:44: Often women think that it’s at the end, it’s the beginning, OK.
19:48: And as you come out of your bleed, your estrogen starts to rise.
19:51: OK.
19:51: And estrogen is like this feel good hormone.
19:54: It’s like juicy.
19:55: You’re like, I can get shit done.
19:57: I’m cruising.
19:59: Then you hit ovulation peak estrogen, and then after ovulation, your progesterone rises.
20:04: And so this second half of your cycle, the last two weeks of your cycle, are progesterone dominant.
20:11: OK.
20:11: So but let’s go back to When you’re coming out of your bleed and your estrogen is rising, it’s like springtime, OK?
20:18: You’re feeling so good.
20:20: This is when you like kill a workout.
20:22: You know, like in the second half, you do the same workout and you’re like, why did I how did that why like last week or two weeks ago I like dominated this.
20:30: It’s it’s your hormones, OK?
20:32: It’s, it’s not just your hormones, it’s your biochemistry.
20:35: I like to say that word because I think hormones sort of like people are like, OK, sure, hormones, but it is your actual chemistry.
20:43: OK.
20:43: So estrogen is where in entrepreneurship, you want to It’s like your get shit done phase, OK?
20:52: It’s like batch all of your social.
20:56: It’s plan and schedule.
20:58: It’s create content.
21:00: It’s like the creatrix kind of mentality.
21:04: and then as you come into the height of estrogen, which is ovulation, this is the time you really want to be front facing.
21:12: So in entrepreneurship, You’re you’re really hard to say no to chemically in this time, OK?
21:20: So like the the hormones that are coming out of your skin, OK, these are meant to attract a mate and so it is very hard for people to say no to you in this in this phase at ovulation.
21:32: So if you were ever launching anything, if you are ever pitching investors.
21:39: , if you ever have any bigger major talk to give, you want to schedule it around your ovulation, height of estrogen, because really you’re magnetic.
21:50: And then as you come, it’s awesome.
21:52: Yeah, yeah, and that’s like that’s really yeah it’s really superpower, especially if it’s let’s say in front of you know, a boardroom of men.
22:01: This is the time like your biochemistry is hard to say no to.
22:05: , and then, as your progesterone comes up after you ovulate.
22:11: This is really a time that you turn the cameras on yourself.
22:17: OK?
22:17: This is the editrix.
22:19: OK, so you edit and audit in your business at this point.
22:23: it’s a great time to look at self and self-discipline and personnel.
22:30: This is sort of when you want to go through your team.
22:33: , this would be when you would want to have reviews.
22:36: This is the audit phase of your business.
22:39: What’s working and what’s not working.
22:41: OK?
22:41: A really good time.
22:43: To evaluate spreadsheets and go really deep into work is in your progesterone phase.
22:51: you want to think of like the second half of your cycle is when you’re potentially, let’s say pregnant in in like just the cycle of our job as humans to procreate.
23:01: And so what the body is doing is it’s like it’s preserving, OK?
23:05: And so it’s nurturing inwards.
23:08: So all of the energetics are in.
23:10: Often women hate this period.
23:13: This time of their cycle, because what it’s not is the male hormone matrix of testosterone, which is linear and outward and energetic.
23:23: It’s testosterone and estrogen are very similar.
23:27: So that like that real output that you have in your in your follicular phase, the first half of your cycle, first two weeks, that is similar to testosterone, like the go and get it done and and and I can achieve anything.
23:41: When you go into the second half of your cycle, your progesterone draws in.
23:47: Women often don’t like this part of their cycle because they think they have to perform like testosterone because and it’s you know no no fault of men, but women in the past 50 years, really only in the past 50 years have have entered the matrix of.
24:03: , careers, and so we, we entered into something that had been built for 100 years and so the model is to output in a testosterone way.
24:17: So consistently showing up with the same energy and that is in direct conflict with our progesterone.
24:29: progesterone is is sort of like this the sedative hormone, so like you want to be in bed, you wanna like curl up and just like be on your computer.
24:38: It’s also, I like to say the time when you’re like.
24:41: , you edit the bullshit out of your life and oftentimes, you know, maybe a lot of men complain that women are like more on edge in this.
24:50: I think it’s that we are very tolerant of bullshit in our, in our estrogenic phase and in our progesterone phase we’re like editing the bullshit out versus like we become crazy like no we’re like seeing what’s happening and editing it out and so what I’ve also sort of made it my mission in speaking about.
25:11: The energetics of work output is to try to rela relate it to, to have men get it, OK?
25:18: And so what I like to also bring to the table is that men also cycle, but they cycle daily.
25:24: OK, so their testosterone is highest in the morning.
25:27: And then lowest at night.
25:29: And so I think men can understand those energetics when they think about their day.
25:34: So in the morning they get up, like everything is upwards and outwards and then by the end, most men, especially as they come out their testosterone lowers in their 30s and 40s.
25:46: The sort of crash of the day and they’re like, you know, you can think of them like reading their nose paper and like smoking your pipe at night, right?
25:53: Like that’s the energetics, and so I think a lot of men can can can feel that.
26:00: And so we women have that except it’s monthly.
26:04: So like our morning is the first two weeks of our cycle and then our night for them, our testosterone drop.
26:12: , equal equivalent is our two weeks of our progesterone dropping.
26:19: I think, I think once I started to talk about that and you know with my husband and then in front of these groups that I’ve spoken to men are like, oh, like we should be taught this like we should know a woman’s cycle because it’s it makes your chemical interaction like more authentic like it’s more logical, let’s say in their minds.
26:41: , and so it’s like my mission to get, get this sort of into this is what we should be learning really in sex ed, you know, instead of like how to put a condom on a banana or whatever, I have so many questions.
26:58: First is like entrepreneurial questions.
26:59: So something that I, because I live my life like this too and she’s starting to live a life like that too.
27:04: So like for example, like recording this weekend, you know, we both look at our thing and we’re like, is gonna be bleeding that weekend, but she is feeling great.
27:12: She’s like ovulation.
27:13: And so I’m so curious how do you do that in partnership if both women are kind of honoring because like we’re not on the same.
27:20: Cycle rhythm.
27:21: I probably need to come see you because my cycle is shorter than hers.
27:25: Yeah, so it’s a little bit off kilter.
27:27: yeah, you know, it’s, it’s actually just being in the awareness there is like acceptance, you know, and maybe.
27:38: If you’re bleeding, then you know to take more of the energetic lead in this, even though we can’t all schedule everything layered on top of each other to each other’s rhythms, what you can do is acknowledge where energy outputs may be and then, you know, take ownership of things that might need more energy or more like auditing, right?
28:02: You can be like, hey, why don’t I do.
28:05: This part of the podcasting and you lead in the sort of speaking aspect.
28:12: So it’s not really like Trying to force each other to be on the same schedule.
28:17: It’s like it’s just knowing makes it different.
28:20: Yeah, makes a difference.
28:21: And we did that.
28:22: Yeah, I think that we did that really well.
28:23: I use the word capacity a lot and so we were like I’m coming in with 40% capacity and she’s like, I’m at 90.
28:30: I got you, you know, like, like she uses that.
28:34: Yeah, yeah.
28:35: Oh yeah, that’s right.
28:36: I have heard that.
28:37: but the other question I had is like for someone that’s in corporate or like how do they navigate their day to day when they are being asked to, for example, be sitting at a desk for eight hours all day long grinding and pushing out all month long every single day, or maybe they’re a nurse that Has these 12 hour shifts that they’re having to show up for and they do over 5 days in a row and it’s going to land like right in progesterone.
29:02: So how could someone like that also energy management in those moments if they are in more of like a luteal phase versus a follicular phase or ovulation phase.
29:13: Yeah, I think those two things are a little bit different, like the nurses who have to do the 12 hours, we see a lot of health problems.
29:21: A lot of nurses come in for infertility.
29:24: And I know like you can’t necessarily always change jobs, but you can sort of evaluate its effect on your life and I think that what you can do is conserve as much as you can in your luteal phase what life gives to you again, it’s just sort of acknowledging and not trying to fight it because then if you’re let’s say in your luteal phase and.
29:50: You’re a nurse at an, and so there’s a lot of like extreme output, then you have to go home and on the days off because nurses have like a 4, usually a 4 day schedule really retreat and go back to self and nourish the part that was like what the part that needs that deep rooted attention.
30:17: And not just like go home and like try to get all your like.
30:20: Erin’s done that.
30:21: Aaron’s done that you didn’t get done on your 12 hour shift, right?
30:25: Like you can be conscious about where you are in your cycle and also sort of like it gives you the chance to forgive yourself, right?
30:35: Like, basically if your friend asks you to go out the next night, you can be like, no, no thank you, like, and and be OK with that and not any guilt around not.
30:46: Going and being front facing, you’re like I’m not, I don’t have that capacity, right?
30:51: it’s just really like knowledge is power.
30:54: And then in the corporate aspect, I think like I think the more we talk about it, the more it’ll change.
31:01: , I think that again, like you can.
31:07: have days where you know, deadlines are due.
31:12: But deadlines aren’t usually do like they give you the deadlines to do that day, right?
31:17: You can really, if you look at your schedule in the rhythms of your life, you can really, I think have some control over where you are bringing your energies.
31:32: And it’s not just like your monthly cycle.
31:35: There’s there’s cycles within the seasons and so there’s like all these little loops in these bigger natural energy output loops, That you can really think critically about instead of fighting and being and shaming yourself like why am I not performing as well in winter than I would in high summer like well it’s because your biochemistry is telling you it’s a retreat time and the other thing I forgot to bring up is that in your menstrual phase is you’re in your lowest hormones, lowest levels of hormones.
32:12: And when your body is sort of clear of that biochemistry output.
32:20: You actually have a chance to download from the universe these big changes in your life, right?
32:27: You are so unclouded by the hormone chemistry that there’s a lot of clarity if you’re able to be open to it.
32:40: And a lot of women really hate their periods.
32:45: But I think if you can rewrite the story to be like, this is the time that I am actually going to come through with these big ideas, you might start to change your story around like your bleed.
32:57: I think it’s also when we’re the most tired like they, it’s really like I, there’s usually one day where I’m like I could lay in bed all day today and be just fine, which is interesting because usually in those moments, if you can create them in your life is when you have downloads because you’re not distracted or pushing yourself like you’re trying to.
33:15: I just remember so many times in life, and Karina speaks about this too like we’re just, especially in your twenties, you’re just pushing yourself so hard.
33:21: Like you, I had no idea about my cycle.
33:23: I’m like, why am I so tired?
33:25: Push through it.
33:25: Like, come on, you know, more, more caffeine, more gym, more like more calorie expenditure, yeah, I think yeah comes comes with.
33:34: What comes with age is like your crave for authenticity and nothing is more authentic than what’s happening inside your body, which is pretty powerful to return to.
33:48: , and not to have like any sort of like shame around.
33:54: Totally, yeah, and I love what you said reframing the period too because like even to this day my mother will be like, I’m so glad I don’t have that anymore and just programmed me with this like your period’s the worst thing ever, like all the women in my life, you know, that’s how they viewed it and I felt that in my body, which is probably also contributed to painful periods and like disassociation from my cycle and it is there’s an empowerment that you’re speaking to that really comes from.
34:18: Reframing and recognizing that this is a superpower, this is a gift.
34:21: Like even our friend Doctor Marita was like, this is, this is your superpower, your cycle is your superpower, and if you understand it like to what you’re saying, it can change your whole life and it can really bring magic to your life.
34:33: I mean, we’re, we have a like a portal inside of us, you know, which is crazy, but it’s so true.
34:40: Like we’re the only thing that can bring life to this planet.
34:43: I mean human life, sorry.
34:46: I want to speak to the part, the art that you were talking about like if there’s a deadline due, like how can you like energy management in that.
34:53: I think there’s also where you’re giving people in this structure and it’s literally biologically in our bodies available to us.
35:00: One, it’s there for you to support you, but two, it’s also, giving yourself grace and giving yourself permission and ease in those moments.
35:07: But there’s also this sense of like self-trust that you start to build over time because you’re like, I’m going to get my energy back.
35:14: I’m going to be able to execute on that thing that I really need to execute.
35:17: It’s OK if I give myself energy in today or grace today.
35:21: Instead of pushing myself so much that then tomorrow I’m literally not gonna be able to show up.
35:26: And I think sometimes that’s where our bodies can show us.
35:29: They’re like giving us the symptoms.
35:30: It’s like you’re tired, taking it easy, you can’t focus as much.
35:34: Maybe your motivation is down.
35:36: And then you really don’t want to be the, I don’t no longer want to be the person that, for example, keeps pushing and then all of a sudden my body’s like, you’re not getting out of bed today.
35:45: You’re staying home because you’re either sick, you have a headache, and you’re done and then you can’t really work on the thing that you want to work on anyways.
35:52: Totally.
35:53: And I think it again another reframe has to sort of happen where you trust.
35:59: That you will get stuff done and you will get it done probably with more vigor than you would if you just burned out through the like a linear model.
36:11: And that a retraction and an expansion leads to greater growth than for women than a linear model.
36:20: The way I sort of like to also explain it is like your lungs expand and contract.
36:26: And so estrogen, let’s say, is the deep breath in, where the lungs expand and progesterone is the breath out when it contracts.
36:36: , and when women ignore the progesterone, the breath out, what it feels like is this.
36:44: And then they’re like, oh my God, I have so much anxiety, because that’s literally what taking a breath in without a breath out feels like.
36:52: And so if you can visualize that, like you need the retraction.
36:57: To feel vigorous, like a full functioning human and even like a efervescent human you need the breath out too.
37:08: You need the progesterone otherwise it gets caught in anxiety and I think a lot of women are like, I just need estrogen.
37:16: I like I’m only living in estrogen only breath in where my lungs expand and then they get caught in a lot of anxiety.
37:23: I loved that.
37:24: That was amazing.
37:24: , I have a question as to like how can women.
37:30: That are in those stages, what can you do to your body support to like optimize that time in your cycle?
37:36: The second half.
37:37: Anytime.
37:37: Oh, all of them.
37:39: Oh yeah.
37:41: menstruating to follicular to ovulation, what can we be doing during those weeks?
37:46: I think if I think if you think about the energetics, you can live your life to sort of make it flourish.
37:54: So, OK, so like in your estrogenic phase, your spring time, think of the things that you do in springtime where you feel really good.
38:02: so it’s really active time in your cycle.
38:05: You want to do like the HIT workouts, you wanna do.
38:09: The cardio like you will feel really good.
38:13: you want to get sunlight in your eyes, you want to go outside and breathe in the grass, right?
38:23: OK, and then, you actually, this is a great time.
38:28: You actually don’t need as many calories in this time, so like.
38:31: If you’re eating lighter meals, this is, you’ll feel better, and then you and then in like the second half of your cycle.
38:40: You’re in your winter, so you want to do the things that you think of in winter.
38:42: You want to sort of retreat, you want to eat the hearty meals.
38:45: You do need more calories in this time to support your lining.
38:51: I think they, I think they’ve measured it.
38:52: I think it’s like 297 more calories you need in this part.
38:57: This is why you’re hungrier, because also you’re not listening to that need.
39:01: So then your body’s like, hey, hey, hey, like I need like, I’m hungry.
39:04: Give me more calories.
39:08: And so you want to eat like the really nutrient dense foods, the warm cooked foods, and this is the time to stay grounded in your exercise.
39:17: So by grounded I mean matte.
39:20: Based movement like Pilates and and yoga and heated things where it’s really nurturing.
39:27: , and then of course, like we talked about like scheduling your energetics at work out, that’ll that’ll nurture your hor hormones and you, you will feel better.
39:39: So in that, when’s the best time like because I know when I first started acupuncture, I went once a week, then I went once a month.
39:46: So what’s the best time of your phase to come for acupuncture if you’re not trying to get pregnant because I know that’s a different situation, but if you’re trying to master the energy of these like really embracing your cycle.
39:56: Good question.
39:57: I think so everything really comes down to when FSH is initiating follicular development.
40:06: OK.
40:06: So it comes down from the pituitary gland and it signals to the follicles, which are basically sacs that hold an egg to grow an egg and you have a handful of follicles that are grown each cycle.
40:18: And if your follicles don’t grow well, then they will give off.
40:25: What happens in the after there’s ovulation, one of the follicles collapses and becomes what’s called the corpus luteum.
40:32: This is why your luteal phase is called luteal.
40:36: So the corpus luteum forms from a follicle.
40:41: And it emits progesterone and so if your follicular development is not robust, then the corpus luteum won’t emit enough progesterone and this is where you have sort of the symptoms of PMS Progesterone is deficient and it can’t bridle excess estrogen.
41:03: And so then you have these estrogenic symptoms that are notorious for the luteal phase like headaches and pain and cramping and mood changes and things like that.
41:16: This is those are excess estrogen and deficient progesterone, too little progesterone won’t bridle.
41:24: , estrogen enough.
41:25: So backing that all up, it really comes from how well your pituitary can send down follicular stimulating hormone or FSH to develop out the the follicle as well.
41:39: So that is usually.
41:42: Right after your period, OK, when FSH is really surging down the hormones in order for the follicle to develop well.
41:51: So if you’re only gonna come once a month and you want to feel better and you want to take advantage of like hormone regulation, I would say really right in the 3 or 4 days after your bleed stops.
42:03: That’s different for every woman, but like on a typical cycle, let’s say cycle day 7 through 10 would be.
42:11: Perfect to catch you so that we can stimulate.
42:14: Follicular follicular stimulating hormones, robustness and get those follicles to be really juicy because they affect progesterone in the end.
42:22: Sign me up.
42:22: I know I’m I’m like, oh, I’m gonna get my period two weeks I’ll be there.
42:27: I asked selfishly for myself.
42:29: You live downtown, is that right?
42:30: Oh, OK, yeah, yeah, close enough, yeah.
42:34: I have a studio that I go to in Hillcrest, yeah, you were in Hill.
42:42: Yeah, perfect.
42:42: I’ll really cute.
42:42: We do.
42:42: I mean, I also think that like aesthetics and spaces in your healing and so often, like traditional Chinese medicine.
42:56: doesn’t take into account necessarily like a really warm and feminine space and so we went back to where I went in LA and it was sweet.
43:05: She had a, I mean she did fertility mainly but like she had a wall full of pictures of kids that she’d helped conceive, but then it was just.
43:13: So stark and cold and like the paper on the table and I’m like, OK, I think like I, I am so sensitive to my surroundings that like I, a lot of the things that I’ve decided in my business journey with my clinic is like what makes me feel good and so like a really warm cozy we have like rugs and mauves and pinks and plants everywhere and like you just want to step in and be like.
43:40: You’re already taking a deep breath before you even you’re exhaling, right?
43:44: You’re getting that deep inward energy that it’s it’s a priority of mine in business for sure, the space.
43:51: I love that.
43:52: I appreciate that so much because it does make a huge difference.
43:55: Like you want to feel invited and warm and we tried to do that with this space too.
44:00: Yeah, you should have seen it before.
44:02: Oh.
44:05: about all the plants.
44:07: in regards to hormones or anything we talked about, is there any like last minute like little dates that you want to share with the audience that you think would be super important?
44:17: OK, so one thing that’s not well known and every podcast that I’ve been on and I’ve sort of spoken about it, I’m trying to spread the word, but we spoke briefly off camera about endocrine disruptors, but lavender is an endocrine disruptor.
44:30: Oh, you know, they don’t know.
44:33: I didn’t know that.
44:34: OK, yeah, I heard that recently, so like in the lavender on every night.
44:38: I know.
44:39: So what lavender does is it actually attaches to estrogen receptors, so it makes more estrogen.
44:45: Oh my God, and I struggle with high estrogen.
44:48: I’m glad I asked the question.
44:51: Yeah, not well known even in like the wellness industries, but what happened was there was a pediatrician and a couple of his boy patients came in and they were having like breast development and they were pre-pubescent, so they didn’t have any hormones running in their body and he was like, what’s the what’s the common denominator between these two boys?
45:11: And the only thing that he could find was that they were both putting like over the counter lavender lotion on their body at night like where their moms were or whatever.
45:18: And so he threw it out there to like the academia and.
45:23: A couple of years later, university picked it up and studied laminar molecularly, and what they found was that it sits right on top of estrogen receptors.
45:32: And so I’m mind blown right now.
45:34: I literally put it on every night, right, right.
45:38: You are not alone, right?
45:40: So and I take progesterone.
45:41: I don’t know what I’m doing.
45:44: Nice.
45:44: I mean, I think that there’s a place for progesterone for sure, but lavender, excess estrogen is no doesn’t really do, yeah, doesn’t you’re having heart attacks.
45:58: Oh no.
46:00: I’m gonna find my husband because he brought it into our nighttime routine.
46:04: I’m kidding.
46:04: Oh, excess estrogen doesn’t feel good.
46:08: Like estrogen, you want to be in like a nice middle ground and so any excess or deficiency will make you feel poorly.
46:16: And so like in menopause, it’s deficiency of estrogen, so you do want to bring your estrogen up but like adding.
46:23: A lavender onto a level of estrogen that’s already making sense for your body is just going to flare those like estrogenic symptoms and those things can also show up in like tissue growth, so polyps and fibroids and so will you share some.
46:38: High estrogen symptoms because I know they’re similar to other symptoms like what are some of the things you ask or look for in patients when you think they might or suspect they might have high estrogen?
46:48: Yeah, totally, like migraines before your period, big estrogen symptom.
46:53: , this is sort of one that is clinical.
46:57: I have never studied it, but what I see a lot of excess estrogen is actually like stuffy nose, like chronic stuffy nose.
47:04: So this happens in the correlation that I made is that in pregnancy, most women get stuffy nose and it’s Because of like such big estrogen levels, but if you are, you have chronic like like can ever, you always feel like a little bit swollen here you’re out like allergies always there even sort of when you take an allergy pill, it’s still like stuffy.
47:27: So estrogen pulls in water.
47:29: It holds in water.
47:30: This is why like in pregnancy you swell because you have like so much estrogen in you.
47:35: , and so it goes, the little, the water that it draws in goes to the little spaces and oftentimes that’s in your sinuses.
47:42: So that that’s just sort of my observation as an acupuncturist.
47:46: Our job is to look at patterns basically, and then, cramping, yeah, pain and distention.
47:57: To the degree that could it be like endometriosis, so endometriosis is an estrogenic tissue disorder, so are fibroids and polyps.
48:05: So anytime there’s excess tissue, that’s estrogen because it’s proliferative in that it makes cells divide and add cells to the tissue.
48:18: OK, so excess cells shows up in these tissue disorders and that’s and and cell growth.
48:25: Lining growth comes from estrogen.
48:27: So if you have endometriosis, you definitely have excess estrogen.
48:31: , or if you have pain and cramping, you might have adenomyosis, which is similar, but both are estrogenic in nature.
48:41: , and then let’s see, what are the other big estrogen signs?
48:47: I mean, swings of mood.
48:49: OK.
48:51: again, estrogen is upward and outward, and if you don’t have progesterone sort of countering it, you’ll feel like you’re on a roller coaster with your emotions upward and outwards, right?
49:05: This is high estrogen.
49:08: In low estrogen, so the, the key to low estrogen symptoms is like fluid deficiencies.
49:16: So that looks like.
49:17: , you know, like.
49:21: Actual vaginal fluid deficiencies, but it also looks like at night you’re supposed to be grounded by your blood and your yin in Chinese medicine, and when you’re not grounded by your fluids, then heat rises and so you will have these big hot flashes.
49:41: you’ll have night sweating.
49:43: This is low estrogen signs and symptoms.
49:47: It also has like a mood component though as well.
49:49: Anytime estrogen flares or goes down, it’s sort of like anytime there’s a big surge or decrease that transition will come with mood disorder, and what we want is even hormones, right?
50:06: Like landing sort of in the middle here.
50:09: And that’s where you feel the best.
50:12: So good.
50:13: I’m glad you asked that question.
50:14: Yeah, I have one more question.
50:16: Do we have time?
50:16: I think we have time.
50:18: my last question would be, can you share like your most inspiring, hopefully it won’t be that long question, but share your most inspiring like fertility story.
50:27: Sure, yeah, that’s there’s so many, but the one that I think that comes to mind is we had a patient come in.
50:34: And she has diminished ovarian reserve.
50:36: She’s in her 30s and she was told by her doctor, like, you have to do IVF, you know, so she did it.
50:42: So she was in the middle of IVF and she just couldn’t get embryos made.
50:50: She ended up having, we took her through the process of getting one embryo made.
50:55: And while she was waiting, so that was a success there in itself because her, she had previously had many cycles and you know these cycles are like you know 200 each.
51:06: Yeah, yeah, the stem phase of IVF, so there’s two phases.
51:11: There’s stimulation where you make an embryo and then there’s transfer when you implant the embryo into the uterus.
51:16: So we, she had maybe, I don’t know, 3 or 4 cycles where she was unable to make an embryo.
51:23: We stepped in, she came to see us.
51:25: We got her to one embryo, and when she was waiting for her transfer phase to come.
51:31: They usually have like a month or 6 weeks before you transfer your embryo.
51:35: She was still coming in and then she got naturally pregnant and it was just like, I was just like, yes, this is, this is like this is the chef’s kiss of where we can come in and like change lives because now not only she has her daughter now, she has an embryo waiting to make her family complete because she did have diminished ovarian reserves, so she was going heading towards menopause and now she has the chance to have The the two, yeah, the two that she that she really did want.
52:06: Yeah, I know it’s so it’s so wonderful.
52:10: But that’s a great story.
52:11: Yeah, yeah.
52:13: The one question that we ask all of our guests is more about you.
52:17: I wish I know we get to know more about you, but the question is, like, where in your life do you feel called to be more fully expressed?
52:24: So it be life, relationships, health, business, whatever you want.
52:28: I mean business.
52:30: I.
52:31: I want to, I guess, fully expressed to me means like I have.
52:37: I can speak on how to make women feel more aligned in their life, and I just want to reach as many people as I can.
52:47: And so I want to express to women that like your your hormones are not something to be fought and that you can actually go further than you thought you could with like a deep knowledge of your biochemistry and Oh, I just want to, I just want to reach as many people as I can.
53:08: So I’m hitting like the podcast trail and just trying to we hold events at our space for entrepreneurs like every quarter with the solstices and equinoxes and so.
53:20: We’re trying to bring women together and have them feel more authentically aligned with themselves.
53:28: It’s so good.
53:29: That’s amazing.
53:30: That’s beautiful.
53:31: Thank you so much.
53:32: Yeah, I mean this has been absolutely incredible and I love this conversation so much.
53:37: I feel like you’re also so well educated and well versed and you’re such a great teacher.
53:40: I also want to express that like the way that you teach or the example.
53:43: that you shared, like it’s so easy to follow.
53:47: And so I appreciate you coming on.
53:48: I love doing that too, yeah, if we have like a whiteboard and we you know I would be like, I love to, yeah, make it tangible.
53:58: So yeah, yeah.
54:00: Where can people find you?
54:01: Yes, we are Aphrodite fertility.com and then all of our handles are Aphrodite fertility.
54:07: Amazing thank you you’re in San Diego.
54:10: Go check her out.
54:12: Come on in.
54:13: I love it.
54:13: Yeah, thank you.
54:14: Yeah, thanks for having me.
54:16: Today’s conversation is a powerful reminder that our bodies aren’t something to fight against.
54:20: They’re something to partner with.
54:22: It’s easy to feel like we need to push harder or do more to be successful or feel whole.
54:26: But maybe, as Emily shared, it’s less about pushing and more about listening.
54:31: Maybe it’s Starts with simply noticing how you feel in each phase of your cycle.
54:35: Maybe it’s giving yourself permission to rest, to create, to be magnetic, or to reflect exactly when your body is asking for it.
54:44: Remember, tuning into your cycle doesn’t have to be a massive overhaul.
54:48: Small shifts, tracking your energy, honoring how you feel, scheduling with intention, can create a profound ripple effect.
54:55: These small acts.
54:56: Of self-respect and awareness can lead to a more aligned, energized, and fully expressed version of you.
55:03: Thank you so much for tuning in.
55:04: We really appreciate you being here.
55:06: If you enjoyed this episode, we’d be grateful if you could leave us a review and share it with a friend.
55:12: Also, we would love to hear from you.
55:14: Reach out to us on Instagram and let us know where you feel inspired to express yourself as you embrace this next era.
55:21: We’re here to support you and encourage you.
55:24: Before we go, we want to remind you that you are powerful and deserving of fully expressing who you are.
55:30: Embracing your journey toward authenticity is a vital part of that process, and we’re grateful to be alongside you.
55:36: If you’re looking to dive deeper.
55:37: Connect with others who celebrate their true selves.
55:40: We invite you to join our community.
55:42: It’s a virtual space for connection and accountability where you can share your experiences and grow together.
55:48: You can find the link in our show notes.
55:50: We can’t wait to welcome you.
55:52: See you on the next one.
Emily brings her expert lens to this conversation, shedding light on:
- How acupuncture can support fertility, regulate hormones, and ease emotional stress
- The emotional and physical toll of infertility—and what healing can look like
- The distinct power of each phase of the menstrual cycle and how to align with them
- How honoring your hormonal shifts can expand your energy, intuition, and self-expression
Links & Resources:
Website: https://aphroditefertility.com/
Free newsletter: https://aphroditefertility.com/the-aphrodite-insider-san-diego
Events: https://aphroditefertility.com/events-at-aphrodite
Blog: https://aphroditefertility.com/trying-to-conceive-blog/
Business coaching for acupuncturists: https://aphroditefertility.com/fertility-acupuncture-business-coaching
Connect with Emily:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aphroditefertility
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AphroditeFertility/
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@aphroditefertility
About Emily:
Emily Marson, Founder and Clinic Director of Aphrodite Acupuncture.
Aphrodite Fertility Acupuncture is a practice dedicated to helping women achieve their dream of pregnancy.
Emily is a true believer in comprehensive integrative fertility care. She has made it her mission to pull women out of the darkness of infertility and guide them to the family they’ve always wanted.
You can rest assured that her team of acupuncturists are the best fertility specialists around – They are highly skilled and knowledgeable in relevant eastern and western techniques so that you are always in good hands. She credits much of her patient’s success to combining the ancient wisdom of Chinese medicine with modern, conventional biomedicine. You will find just what you need here, every step of the way.
Whether you’re navigating fertility challenges, burnout, or simply curious about syncing your life to your body’s rhythms, this episode is a must-listen.
Join The Fully Expressed Community, where you can be surrounded by other women who are also on the same path of personal growth, healing, and uncovering their authentic expression. Being in a community surrounded by others can truly be one of the most supporting and healing containers to support your personal invitation.
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