Speaker 0
Into the wild, I'm going into the wild, I am. It's been a wild freedom child, since I left my roots back home. Into the wild I'm good. Into the wild I am. It's been a while, freedom child, since I left my roots back home.
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Free Birth Society podcast. This is a radical space for women who are ready to celebrate their autonomous choices in birth, motherhood, and beyond. Together, we'll learn about wild birth through personal narrative, we'll explore the politics of birth, and we'll analyze everything that relates to our lives as women from a feminist perspective. Here's your host, Emilee Saldaya.
Speaker 0
It's been a wild freedom change since I've left my rules back home.
Speaker 2
Hello, women. Welcome to the Free Birth Society podcast. I've got something a little different for you today. We are branching out our dialogue into nutrition today with the lovely Jessica Ash. Jessica tried every diet under the sun to heal her cycle and ailments and now has finally grounded into herself and her work as a true nourishment coach, you could say. We talk about the real life cost of restrictive eating, explore what nourishment actually really means, and how both of us have woken up to nourishment through self love. It's a great episode that's really bound to get your wheels turning. Before we begin, I wanna let you know that we are in our official countdown before registration closes for our springtime retreat. It's a five night, all inclusive, chance of a lifetime to learn the art of village midwifery with myself and my epic mentor, elder, midwife, sister Morningstar. Spots are filling up. We're getting really excited. It's going to be here so soon. I know a lot of you are eyeing this, so now is the time to jump on it. We opened up another payment plan and a buy now, pay later situation, so check it all out at matriarch rising festival dot com slash midwife within. Talk about nourishment. We are bringing back chef Raziya and her crew to serve us again. She was our chef at the festival and will be again in twenty twenty four. She brings just the most beautiful, incredible fifteen meals together for this retreat. It's gonna be so good. It's just a total dream come true. I really can't wait to see who comes and joins us. So check it out. Matriarch rising festival dot com slash midwife within. Would love to have you with us if you feel the call. Alright. Enjoy this episode.
Speaker 3
Love it.
Speaker 2
Alright. Welcome to the show, Jess.
Speaker 3
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2
So like we just said before we were recording, we're just gonna flow today and get into who you are, what your life looks like, what your work has become, and what it you know, what you're up to. As I was sharing with you, the way you came into my sphere was women in my circle kept bringing you up as someone that they wanted to connect with and see at the festival, which is so fun. And, hopefully, we can make happen someday. So welcome.
Speaker 3
Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. I I feel like my metamorphosis or the evolution of my work has led me to being able to hold a space for women that, really is founded in nourishment. And I think what goes deeper than nourishment is self nurturance. So to me, nourishing ourselves goes down to being able to nurture ourselves and then, therefore, nurture everything and everyone around us. And it didn't start that way. I had, at a very young age, I was put on birth control and How old is Yes. Fourteen, fifteen. Damn. Yeah. I was having, you know, I was having the typical period problems like they like to call it right out of the gate right when I went through puberty. And from then on, it just kind of morphed into me being put on birth control. And then around seventeen or eighteen, I thought, you know what? I I don't wanna be taking this anymore. That's when I really started to get into health and understanding my body. And once I went off, that was when just kind of shit hit the fan. I was very, I had all types of metabolic issues, and I ended up getting diagnosed with PCOS. And then I had a lot of autoimmune symptoms that ended up getting classified as celiac disease, Hashimoto's, lupus, exploring, like, Raynaud. It's just kind of the random
Speaker 0
Oh my god.
Speaker 3
Bundle of autoimmunity that so many women are dealing with today. And that kinda set me on my path of really diving into, you know, no one's gonna give me any No one's really helping me and jumping from doctor to doctor and then naturopath to naturopath and I realized at some point like this is in my own hands and that led me on the journey like most women do where we kind of jump from diet to diet and try you know, cutting out meat, and then we try paleo and then keto and carnivore and kinda get caught up in this, you know, desperation to heal. And so you're so focused on the food that you forget, like, what what's actually going on? What is my body actually needing? When we're so focused on restriction, we forget, like, what do I actually need to be getting regularly?
Speaker 2
We also we also wanna be told what to do. Right? Like, the framework of keto, the framework of fill in the blank. It gives us something to follow, but I love you pointing that out because you can do it in a way that actually is still fairly, like, the lights can still be off. You can still not be checking in.
Speaker 3
Absolutely. Absolutely. And so many of us are there. We are tired. We are burned out. There is kind of this, like, deep feeling of being drained. So we do want to contract that out in a way. We want someone to just tell me what's right for my body. But at the end of the day, no one can because it's your body and you're the only one in it. So I really started my work talking to women who had hormonal issues, PCOS, and I delivered this framework. This was a couple of years now. This is, like, two thousand seventeen, two thousand eighteen. It was very popular to call dairy and sugar and gluten, like, every it was inflammatory. Everything's inflammatory. You know? You gotta avoid all the inflammatory things, nightshades, this and that. And it was kind of radical at the time to be talking about, like, hey. You know, dairy could be a really nutritious food for you if it works well for you. It's a part of the traditional diet. You know, well prepared bread can also be a great part of your diet. So just simple things like that really changed and kind of started this revolution. But that has led me to realize that women are still using those things, and they're stuck in a very rule based structure. It's they're still looking outward for somebody to tell them what to do, what to eat. And that has led to this just such especially in the social media climate, you know, we scroll, we scroll, we scroll, we scroll. We're searching for the the answer, and it has led us to this place where we just feel like we don't know which way to go. We're so burned out, and we're so disconnected from our intuition when it comes to food.
Speaker 2
So how did you what did it look like for you to shift out of the fad diets or frameworks into learning what true nourishment for you look like?
Speaker 3
Yeah. So for me, I was for a long time, as most of us are, I was really caught up on the symptoms I was experiencing. Because every day, I was bombarded with symptoms. I had period issues. I I wasn't ovulating. I wasn't making progesterone. I so I I was having, severe estrogen dominance issues, but I also had really bad gut issues. So it's like every day was a symptom that I was experiencing, And I did feel like I was reacting to every single food. So I'm very compassionate to people that feel that way. So I think when I was first on my journey, I was just chasing whatever would get rid of my symptoms.
Speaker 0
Mhmm.
Speaker 3
But pretty quickly, I learned that symptom suppression and chasing symptom resolution doesn't actually get us well. We kind of are always running from something. Like, we're we're trying to dodge landmines with our diet, and it becomes incredibly exhausting and stressful. And so I saw this kind of what I call, like, this game of whack a mole where people would be like, I have gut issues, and then they whack the mole. And then it'd be like, oh, now I have adrenal fatigue. Whack the mole. And then it's like, oh, I have thyroid issues. Whack the mole. And it just, like, you keep going. It's like, now I have small intestinal bacteria overgrowth, whack the mole. And it just it never ever ends. And you get caught up in this vicious cycle of toxic healing almost where now you always have this new thing to heal, and you really can't say you're better off for it. Maybe you don't have the symptoms that you originally had, but now you're in this cycle. And so that's where I found myself at some point. I think I was just getting more and more restrictive with my diet. I went from vegan, realized very quickly that that was not gonna work for me. So paleo was the answer, then it was kind of more, keto and then carnivore. And I thought I'm still kind of new symptoms are popping up. The old ones are going away, but I'm getting so restricted that I I can't get any more restrictive than just meat. Like, there's there's nowhere to go. And at the same time meat? Yeah. How old the meat is? Right.
Speaker 2
Where the meat is?
Speaker 3
Does it have salt on it? You know? It
Speaker 2
Oh my god. But, also, this becomes I'm not saying it is for you, but, like, it can so easily tilt into, like, a neurosis. Like, it becomes such a identity to have a sickness to self diagnose. You know, you can really if you're that if you're drawn to that, you can really spin in this arena as I'm sure you've seen.
Speaker 3
Absolutely. And I think it's I think, so many women are there because they're not getting the help that they need or the guidance that they need. And so, of course, they're gonna turn to whatever they can turn to. And right now, that is kind of what we elevate or put on a pedestal is, like, who can be more strict and who can be more disciplined. And women are are a lot of women are really stuck in perfectionism. They're stuck. That that's one of the main things that I've seen is, like, they really have high expectations for themselves, especially in the wellness community. There's this kind of they're they're afraid of everything. They're afraid of toxins. There's they're afraid of making one misstep with their diet, and they've gotten to this point where they don't know which way to go. And that's where I found myself, quite a few years ago now, and I said this cannot be the answer. And so when I started to flip flop my idea to what am I afraid of, to what does my body need, oh, man, did my life radically change when I started focusing on what nutrients I needed and how often I needed to eat to feel good and kind of look outside of what the rules are. You know, everyone's intermittent fasting and eating two meals a day or one meal a day. What do I need to feel well? I'm like, man, I need to All the time. I need to eat pretty regularly to feel good. I need to eat plenty of protein. I need to get a variety of foods in. I can't really drink caffeine on an empty stomach. And it really does lead to a freedom that you can hopefully kind of override the BS and stop focusing on it so much, but so many women are still stuck there. And that's kind of what I'm on a mission to change.
Speaker 2
And it's so tied into a lot of the work that I do around you know, I work with a set of tools that help you identify the many, many, many ways in which we outsource, in which we are trying to get, approval, security, and control from outside ourselves. And asking this question, what do I need? Even to begin the possibility of that self discovery begins the journey of cultivating our own resources. I had a, a realization about gosh. I guess it was about a year ago now with, nourishment. And I had never really I I haven't been one of those people that was doing all that stuff, like all the restrictive stuff. I have, thankfully, for whatever reason, have easy cycles and but I've watched the women I love, you know, go through exactly what you just identified. And, anyway, last year, I was in a women's circle, and I for the first time, we were all sitting outside in the sun drinking raw milk and eating chocolate chip cookies that our friend had made. And I said out loud, I feel so nourished. For the first time in my life, it felt really different. Like, I'm not my body doesn't look the way I've been groomed to think it should. You know, I've had two children. I don't exercise the way I did in my twenties. Like, I have all the same scripts that everyone else has, you know? Yeah. But I feel nourished. And that felt so like I said it out loud, and it felt so edgy and kind of radical to Yes. Say. Yeah.
Speaker 3
Yeah. It is. It is, especially in the society that we're in. I mean, to feel at home in your body and completely connected to your body and, really just give it what it needs when it asks for it, that is pretty radical. Like, that is why is it radical? I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2
Well, we're supposed to hate ourselves and self harm until the day we die. And not doing that and owning, especially in, like, a public arena to really own that we are not hating ourselves and not self harming is is pretty it's pretty crazy. Okay. So take me to more about your work. So you have this whole huge shift of consciousness, really, and it sounds like you you chose to learn how to resource from within, essentially. And so you're starting to learn. This feels good. This feels good. Tell me about, like, what happens in your life and how you start to go on this actual health path in the public arena.
Speaker 3
Yeah. And I so in the public arena, you know, I came out with a course called fully nourished in two thousand nineteen, and it really kind of teaches a I don't even like to say rules or guidelines. It teaches a set of principles, metabolic perspective. And pretty much what that means is going down to the cell level, your cells produce electricity, energy, and they take the fuel, the raw resources, and then they turn it into the energy that you need. And when you don't have those raw materials, impacts our organs. Right? It impacts us down to the cellular level. And so, really, what cellular metabolism is is it's making sure that we have the tools and resources, whether that be carbs, proteins, and fats, or the nutrients needed to process those carbs, proteins, and fats as kind of a fundamental. Obviously, that's not the whole that's not the only thing that's important. But I think a lot of women are forgetting that they're like, I feel so rundown. I feel so awful. I'm having thyroid dishes. I'm having this. And I'm like, did you eat breakfast? Like, did you, are you just chugging coffee all day? Oh, you ate, like, enough to fuel a small toddler. That is probably why you don't feel well, and we're so disconnected. I mean, so there are women right now that don't have appetites. We've completely we've gotten so disconnected from our body's, signals and signs that we forget that if we ignore our hunger enough times, our body will start to speak up in other ways. Our hair will start falling out. We're start gonna we're gonna start aging very quickly. That layer of fat between our skin that provides safety and protection starts to dissipate. Our body does not run on thin air. And so I really kinda came up with this set of principles that was like, eat breakfast within an about an hour of waking. Don't drink coffee on an empty stomach. Don't treat coffee like a drug. Just drink your coffee after your breakfast if you do well with coffee. You might need to eat every couple of hours, especially if you're in a burnout state or you're in a place like pregnancy or breastfeeding. Like, you might need to eat every three to four hours to keep your blood sugar stable because your body's not gonna be able to do that for you if your liver is really not functioning well. The basics of, you know, everything in the wellness space is so complicated right now. It's like, I can't detoxify well, and I can't do this, and I can't do that. And it's like, well, are you fueled? Are you getting enough protein? And are you getting it from sources that are super processed or just just the whole real foods like egg The basics. Steak and just basics. And I know it sounds so simple, but so many women, find challenge in just feeding themselves a basic three meals a day. I think there are so many things vying for our attention right now that we forget the basics, and we're so focused on what supplements to take and what, you know, detox tools to have and these fancy wellness tools that we forget that our body's basic needs is just to be just to be fed and just to be nurtured with the basics, like sleep and getting outside and getting our feet on some grass and getting some sunshine. And those are basic biological needs that our body will not feel safe if it's not getting those things.
Speaker 2
Also, even even beyond the supplements and stuff, just like mom life or entrepreneur life, you know, just the word that that came to me was just like others. Yes. They're just tending to others, and that that's just a part of mom life, you know, for everybody. And so Absolutely. Yeah. It's a trip. It really is a trip. So give me, like, some of your tried and true tips and tricks that you've seen work really well if someone I'm sure many women are listening to this. Like, okay. Great. Yes. I need that. And where do I even start? What does that look like?
Speaker 3
Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, like, we I always say that the typical underdourished woman, you're gonna feel like you're in your Karen archetype. Like, you're gonna feel just kind of constantly underlying that kind of, like, underlying rage or irritation or, like, you just don't really you always feel burned out, overwhelmed, and you're not you don't feel like you're present. You don't feel like you can just accept or soften to your life, I guess, would be the best way. And I I'm, you know, I'm sure many women listening feel that way. And it can always feel really stressful to be like, okay. I have to do one more thing. So for me, the first thing I always say is what are you spending your time on or prioritizing that's actually not working for you? Yeah. Get rid of that. Get rid of that and focus on what your body actually needs. First things first is protein. Women really need protein, and they are hurting for protein. Now bioavailable sources of protein, this one's a tricky one, but animal sources of protein are way more bioavailable than plant sources of protein. That's just fact. It's harder for
Speaker 2
your body.
Speaker 3
Speech. Exactly. Exactly. There are places in
Speaker 2
on the West Coast, you're not allowed to say that.
Speaker 3
Exactly. I know it can be really hard to hear, but they are so nourishing, and they come with a lot of cofactors that allow our liver to detoxify properly. And I I probably have brought up the liver a couple of times because the liver is not only there to detoxify for us, but it actually manages our blood sugar control. So it can store about eight hours of stored glucose. And it every time our blood sugar drops low, it can kind of feed out glucose or energy into the bloodstream for us. It also converts our thyroid hormones. So our thyroid, produces a hormone called t four mainly, and we need to convert it into an active form called t three. And primarily, that happens in the liver. And so when we are not fueled well, especially in with protein, because liver requires a lot of protein, we can start to feel the thermostat of the body starts to lower that. And as we get older, our ability to synthesize protein goes down. So many women will say, like, I just feel like my metabolism is not the same in my forties as I was in my thirties or in my thirties as I was in my twenties, and this is partially the reason. A lot of us are just not eating enough protein and then on top of it, we're creating an environment where our body actually needs more protein. The more stress we're under, the more protein we need. And so and then we're not synthesizing it well. And so we get to this point where our body is in desperate need of protein as kind of a foundational thing, and we're not getting enough. So things like eggs and, seafood and, you know, meats and, dairy are all great sources of bioavailable protein. And if you're somebody that's trying to get a bunch from plant foods and it's not working for you, that is usually what your body is crying out for. They give you a vitality that just cannot be, mimicked no matter where you get your protein from or try to.
Speaker 2
Egg replacer.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Like flax seeds and chia seeds and nuts are not the same thing. They just they just don't provide the same vitality, the same cofactors.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I was a vegetarian for, I mean, twenty years.
Speaker 3
Wow.
Speaker 2
Yeah. When I dropped out of high school and moved out to LA, I did mushrooms for the first time, realized everything was alive, and was like, I'm not supposed to eat animals. Mhmm. And I didn't revisit that belief for a really long time. And then just a couple years ago, I had a knee injury that just wasn't healing. And I'm looking around at the women in my life who are all, you know, into the Weston a price, into the nutrient dense, they get you know, that's starting to come into the consciousness, the raw milk, the raw eggs, all this stuff. And I'm looking around, and I'm hearing the women of my life talk about how much better they feel. Right? And so that's what guided me. I was like, alright. Because I had created such a story about it and really, really thought and kinda still do, but really thought Meet was just so disgusting. Just, like, so so gross. And I like to push my boundaries. I like to, like, check my stories and play with stuff. And so for about a year I mean, I was disgusted by me. Like, watching someone eat meat was like and so for about a year, I would just every time I eat meat, I would just be like, this is medicine. This is good for my body. I'm learning how to nourish myself. You know, this is medicine. This is medicine. This is good for me. And really had to readdress these long standing made up things that I had going, you know. Anyway, concrete short. Yeah. It's been a couple years now. And my baby was, you know, a raw milk meat, you know, baby.
Speaker 3
A nutrient dense baby.
Speaker 2
A nutrient dense baby. Oh my god. Yeah. You gotta patent that. And anyway, he was like two pounds heavier than my first kiddo. Wow. Yeah. Like, well, just shy of two pounds and, you know, he eats everything. And my daughter's like super picky, won't touch meat because I, like, pass that shit to her, you know? Right. Anyway, it's just a trip. It's a real trip to address just the stories we carry and how, of course, that is literally creating our relationship with the world.
Speaker 3
Yes. Yes. And I I think this definitely comes down to because we outsource death. We as a society are really not connected to death and connected to sacrifice in the way that we should be. And so if we were involved in the death of the animal from the very beginning and actually raising it and loving it, it is such a different experience than just kind of, like, getting this hunk of, like, disgusting meat on our plate. Totally. And it it really is. It's a completely different experience, and we do live in this weird society where meat is kind of gross because just as this pile of mush that comes in a package, and that's what it is.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Totally. Yeah. We have, like, a more of a homesteading life now, and I remember Yolanda years ago first being, like, what way rather give instead of just being a vegetarian, I'd way rather give my money to the, you know, high quality regenerative farms out there. And that really got me thinking, like, oh, yeah. Right. Yes. That makes sense. So okay. So it sounds like you were a little ahead of the curve with the nutrient dense discovery.
Speaker 3
You know, I I don't say I wanna say I was ahead of the curve. I think I, the West Native price has already been you know, I feel like that community, they're very into, like, the high fat, the high meat, the high dairy. But on the flip side, they're super anti carb. So there's that other aspect of we we tend to find, like, snippets of truth, but then there's always this thing that we must fear or this thing this, like, devil in the corner that's, like, gonna get us. And we love that. Right? We need something to blame to give us a little bit of structure to our life because if we're free to just choose, ah, then we have to actually trust ourselves and trust our intuition, and that's a really scary place for a lot of us to be with food. And, of course, there's layers and layers to that for most of us that we have to unpack. Like, why am I so afraid of this? But carbohydrates are important. Now I always say adequate carbohydrate. I like to use that word because everyone's different. There are women that can do pretty well on a lower carb diet. They're usually are a lot more sedentary. And then women that are really active or, you know, they have a lot of they have to extend a lot of mental energy, moms, entrepreneurs, they usually don't do well on a super, super low carb diet. And so carbohydrates are important, and there's a big demonization of carbohydrates right now. And that one is we need it for our brain and central nervous system. So if we don't get enough carbs, we will constantly find ourselves feeling burned out because our adrenals have to pump out adrenaline, cortisol. Our pancreas has to pump out glucagon in order to manufacture glucose. Our body, if we're not getting enough, we make it, and we make it using stress hormones, hormones of survival. So if women are constantly feeling like they're kind of stuck in the state of fight or flight or anxious all the time or stressed or, you know, almost that, like, very reactive, like, high reactive feeling, that is usually a sign that maybe you do if you're already doing really well on getting enough protein, well, maybe you actually do need a little bit more carbs in your life or you need a little bit more structure to your eating throughout the day. Like, instead of going six hours without eating, maybe you need a little snack in there, and not the extra cup of coffee.
Speaker 2
So I'm pretty ignorant about this stuff. So carbohydrates meaning grains?
Speaker 3
Carbohydrates meaning so I always say roots and fruits and then grains and beans would be that too. Obviously, the the more grains we have, the more beans we have, they are a little bit harder to digest. They need to be prepared properly to be able to break down the nutrients in them. And so when we are stressed, our digestive capacity is poor. Like, what you said when, you know, getting meat down was really hard the first year or so because if we don't use it, we lose it. It. And our stomach acid is really required to be able to break down food. But when we're in a stress state or a survival state or we're stuck in these kind of survival based eating patterns, our body is in fire flight mode. Like, we are trying to survive, and blood flow is going away from the digestive organs. Our body doesn't really wanna expend energy on digestion, which is often why we lose our appetite or we kind of have this imbalance appetite where we go days without being hungry and then all of a sudden we're just, like, starving and we just pile suit on. These patterns are really typical in women. We see that because there is this kind of constant low grade survival state that we're stuck in and that, finding the right carbohydrates are good is is good for us. Some women don't do well on fruit or it's not very local to them, so it doesn't really make sense to do that. Vegetables can be carbohydrates too as long as they're really well prepared and they're not super hard to digest. Root vegetables are obviously a great source of carbohydrates, but some of them do really well on grains and really well on beans, especially if they're well prepared. You know, there are some genetics that have such a genetic potential for being able to digest greens and beans. There is no reason to demonize them if you do really well on them and you feel grounded and satiated on them. So finding your carbohydrate is good. And even, you know, small amounts of things like coconut sugar and maple syrup and, honey, you know, food is supposed to bring pleasure as much as it's is supposed to bring nourishment, and there's no reason to cut those things out unless you absolutely don't tolerate them.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Right. Because, duh, it's about what works for you. How do you feel when you eat it?
Speaker 3
Yeah. And, honestly, if it's if it feels really complicated, the first place to start is just what are you craving? Like, what are your patterns? Are you somebody that, you know, goes weeks without sugar and then all of a sudden you just cannot help but just binge on sugar for two days straight? That's telling you something. Your body is meaning a little bit of that every day, and it's much better to just give your body what it needs on a regular basis than try to restrict and then have your body kind of override your brain.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Right. It really is. Are you living outside of yourself trying to trying to put some sort of structure onto you, or do you know how to navigate a full body yes, really, in relationship to your symptoms, how you feel afterwards? So simple, so complicated. So what are some basic things that you have discovered that you wish more women understood?
Speaker 3
Yeah. I think the biggest thing is it's not all about the food. I think we want something to blame or it's actually much simpler to just focus on food and supplements, and it gives us a sense of control that we forget that there are so many layers to why we're not healing. Like, if we continue to try to find healing in a more restrictive eating pattern or really obsess about the food, then there's something there that we are missing. I feel like a lot of women, as important as much as you can, you can't constantly be worried about if that's not something within your accessibility or you can't financially afford it, causes financial stress. There needs to be a happy medium, and there needs to be an acceptance there. And I think for a lot of us, we don't feel that way. We're we're constantly chasing this level of perfect with our diet. And so I I like to just remind women it's not just about the food. The food, sometimes we put way too much importance in the food. It is important, but it's not the most important thing. And how we look at it makes a big difference. I think another thing that women really I wish that they understood is living when you're nourished is a completely different experience than when you are living in an undernourished state constantly. It is a completely different experience. You are gonna show up differently for, your partner. You're gonna show up differently for your children. You're gonna show up differently in your life. You're gonna make different decisions because your hormones are gonna be functioning differently. Everything that is in your essence that makes you you functions completely differently because your body shifts based on its environment. So if your body continuously feels unsafe, has a level of instability, it's going to operate from that place. You're gonna make decisions based on fear, based
Speaker 2
on Scarcity.
Speaker 3
Exactly. Or you're gonna make decisions based on getting the most abundance from your life. When you're nourished, your body is in an abundant state, and it feels very differently and it sees the world very differently. Your brain perceives everything differently. It's like glass half empty versus glass half full. It really shifts your perspective. And you have a lot of power also over you know, I know there are a lot of moms listening, and I am not a mother myself, but this is something that I care so much about because I plan to be a mother and I am passionate about it. It's your children watch you in how they nourish themselves or how you're nourishing yourself, and they learn how to not only nourish themselves but nurture themselves through how you nurture them, but also you nurture yourself. And for a lot of us, we're running we're pouring from an empty cup and we feel just like if there's never enough time in a day and there's never enough this and there's never enough that. And that is a reflection of that kind of scarcity mindset. So many of us don't realize we're living in that state of just constant fight or flight, and it's impacting who we are and how we behave. And it's not of our fault necessarily. We just are not understanding that there is a power over that and how we operate.
Speaker 2
I love that. Yeah. It's a totally different state of being.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2
And Yeah. I'm thinking of I can't remember who says this. Maybe it's Tommy John. I can't think of who says this, but they say, happy donut is better than a sad salad.
Speaker 3
Yes. I yes.
Speaker 2
You know, which I love so much. And it just kind of encapsulates so much of this idea of, like, what you're gonna do. Like, if you're eating the perfect balance, blah, blah, but you're stressed the fuck out and you're, like, totally not present and you're texting and you're, you know, like, gut is all, like, in fear and and you're eating the most perfect meal in the world. It's like, yeah. That's not gonna go down right. You know. But if you eat that pasta just in such joy and presence, it's gonna be great.
Speaker 3
Yes. Yes. Exactly. And what a gift to be able to pass down. Right. I I feel like right now, our generation, we a lot of us had mothers that did not eat in that way. It was like, here, gorge yourself on food, but, like, oh, I can't eat that. That's too fattening. You know? So we have a lot of women who are so confused, like, conflicted about food.
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Speaker 3
And we don't recognize that we might be passing that down as well. And what a gift to be able to just see the kitchen as a place for connection, but also as a way to nourish ourselves and see that in a deeper light. You know, that is something nutritional wealth is something that we pass on for generations. It doesn't just impact us, but it impacts our children and our children's children as well.
Speaker 2
Yeah. That's a beautiful concept, nutritional wealth. So let's go back to your work a little bit. So, like, what happens next? You come out with this course and sounds like you're making some really big consciousness shifts in your life.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. So I, you know, I have learned that nourishment is the gateway. When you start to nourish your body physically on a cellular level and you start to communicate through food and other habits that your body is safe, you know, your body really becomes this vehicle to kind of pull your soul in a certain direction. There is something that your, you know, my belief is that your body is here to actually guide you and teach you. Your body is often aware of things before you're ever consciously aware of something. And as you nourish yourself on a cellular level, that begins to permeate outward. So you begin to become more connected with yourself. And that's actually a really challenging journey us at first. You know, I've I've helped thousands of women go through fully nourished. And what we see is that there is this initial like, oh, I'm feeling so much better. But a lot of times, we've been in such an undernourished place that one of the main things that begins to happen sometimes is just weight gain. We start to gain some weight because our body was in such a famine, pretty much a famine for so long. It's now like, yes. I'm getting fed. I'm gonna hold on to everything. Yeah. And so this brings up a lot of our body struggles. What like, our the the scripts that we have running, the programs we have running surrounding our body. Our mom's voice comes in. Our grandma's voice comes in. Our auntie's voice comes in, and we start to really, you know, are faced with what we the false beliefs we have about ourselves. And so that's a big part of the journey. Another thing is once we are no longer numb, once we are no longer disconnected or stuck in a constant state of adrenaline, we actually have a lot more awareness and we start to pay attention and we start to be connected to our body and that can feel really scary at first because it's like, wow, you start to recognize how much emotional work we have to do. You start to recognize how much deeper work, really nourishment at the cellular level physically really opens up the gateway or opens up the doors so that you now have the energy to work through a lot more. And so that's what I have experienced. It really took me my body took me through a just roller coaster of healing and forced me to deal with so much generational junk I had been carrying for so long. I had to break spell after spell after spell after spell. And, you know, after I almost look at it as healing waves, you know, just when you think you're like, finally, I take a breath. It's like the next wave just comes crashing down on you. And it's you're dredging up cellular trauma. You're dredging up cellular junk that has been there for so long, sometimes generations. And it's kind of it's it's kind of difficult to deal with, but in between the
Speaker 2
waves the biggest deal ever.
Speaker 3
Yeah. In between the waves, you're like, wow. I am turning into a completely new person. And over time, the waves become less and less frequent and less and less extreme. And you start to you realize you peeled away everything that you weren't to discover who you are.
Speaker 2
That's a beautiful visual. But your body didn't force you. You chose. Mhmm. No. You know? You really chose to do this work and to meet yourself, which is everything. You know? That's that's why women are inspired, you know? Because Yeah. Like you said at the beginning, no one can do this stuff for you.
Speaker 3
Yeah. I could have totally been, like, a keto influencer. I'm just, like, you know, been, like, don't eat carbs in the morning and, like, don't ever eat carbs. I'm, like, oh, I'm so hot. Look at my bod, you know. And just, like, constantly showing you pictures of my stomach. Like, it's easy to do that. You you
Speaker 2
can't do that. Available on Instagram. There are many paths.
Speaker 3
I feel like I I did choose the most difficult way, but it's the way that I needed to go. And I've learned so much along the way, and I continue to kind of evolve and change and shift just based on the collective shifts too. I think as women, we're kind of shifting as a collective. We're moving in a direction, it feels like. We are very much more aware. We're wanting something different. Some of us are really still stuck, but there's, the body like I said, the body usually knows before the mind, and many of us, our bodies are screaming. Yeah. Yeah. Eat me. Love to listen. Go grab
Speaker 2
yourself some food while you
Speaker 3
finish listening to this episode. Exactly.
Speaker 2
So what is your your symptoms and health with the stuff you mentioned earlier like now?
Speaker 3
Yeah. You know, on a day to day basis, I'm really great now. I I don't struggle with what I used to struggle with. I
Speaker 2
That's huge.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I I now know hindsight. You know, most of my issues were stress related, were, definitely had a lot to do with emotional stress, holding trauma, holding, just old patterns of behavior, and that was a big part of it, but also just not really understanding what my body was needing. And I am a big believer, you know, our rhythms, our cycles, we are dynamic and changing every single day. And so we, as women, were constantly told that, you know, estrogen is the woman's hormone, and we forget about the importance of progesterone. Progesterone is actually the woman's hormone when you look at how much progesterone we have related to estrogen, and it's very easy for our body to create estrogen. It's more difficult for our body to create progesterone. And the medical system has kinda convinced us that progesterone is just the progestation hormone. I can't tell you how many times I had people tell me like, oh, when you get pregnant, you're gonna wanna, like, get your progesterone levels up. Never saying like, hey. Your progesterone is really low. Like, we should probably do something about it. And once I really realized how much getting enough energy impacted my creation of progesterone, As women, we only create progesterone when we ovulate, and the emptied egg sac becomes the corpse luteum, and then that is what manufacturers us progesterone until we either menstruate or will continue to make us progesterone until the placenta can take over if pregnancy occurs. And so progesterone is very important, not just for fertility, but for metabolic function, for us to feel in our bodies. And when we don't have enough, we don't feel connected. We don't feel present. We feel like we're in this this constant state of moving forward, and we cannot stop. It is estrogen causes building and growth, which is great, but it will it it does it in an unchecked manner. Progesterone provides the consciousness to estrogen and directs it in the direction it needs to go. And without progesterone, estrogen for women makes us feel imbalanced and and can be even dangerous. So progesterone is a fruit of abundance, and we, a lot of women in the modern world are not producing the fruit of abundance because we're not in that state of abundance.
Speaker 2
And what are some simple ways to start supporting your progesterone?
Speaker 3
Yeah. So that would be eating enough protein. It would be if you're someone that goes long, long periods without eating or regularly skips breakfast, just having regular meal times, even just if it's breakfast, lunch, and dinner, not waiting three to four hours, like, after you've done a million things to just get your breakfast in, being fueled well, getting enough sleep. Nutrients like vitamin e and vitamin c are really important. Zinc, animal foods are great for progesterone production, but so are fruits because they are really they are a powerhouse of potassium and vitamin c. So going back to that balance of protein and carbohydrates can be essential, and everyone's a little different in what they need. But that is usually where is a good place to start and then becoming aware of your stress patterns. Like, are you stuck in fight or flight all day? Are you constantly in the state of, like, scarcity and fear? That is going to really rob us of progesterone absolutely because it depletes nutrients needed to create progesterone. So we kind of are choosing what do we we want our body to expend its resources on. We don't have unlimited resources.
Speaker 2
So what is your relationship to food look like these days?
Speaker 3
Yeah. You know, I think people would be surprised at how much I don't care about food as nutritionists. So, like, I
Speaker 2
You're like McDonald's. No.
Speaker 3
No. I just not that far. But I I feel like I really tune into what I crave. I kind of know what protein I am. I know what carb is. I know what fats are, and I really pay attention to what's kind of local, what looks good, what looks juicy, what's sweet, what's ripe, what's attractive to me, and then kind of base meals around that. My meals are extremely simple. Like, for breakfast day, I had some nice sourdough, a little bit of cream cheese, some nice juicy tomatoes I got at the farmer's market, slice of turkey, and an egg on top. You know, like, very simplicity is really key here. I think for a lot of women, you need to be able to slap something together in five minutes or less. And so just keeping things really simple and delicious and enjoyable, but also balanced, you know, having a carb in there, having a fat in there, having a protein in there, and just paying attention to how food makes us feel.
Speaker 2
Do you make your sourdough?
Speaker 3
I don't. You're a sourdough? I like to I like to occasionally, but honestly, in this season, I just, I am not a I'm not into making bread.
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Speaker 3
There's too much responsibility.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Right? You gotta keep that thing alive. I don't understand it. Some of my best friends just, like, drop loaves off at our house, and I don't, like, understand the magic that it takes to get to it.
Speaker 3
It's it's tricky. I feel like it is an art for sure. But, yes, I don't make my own bread.
Speaker 2
It was fun to hear you talk about the nourishment being the gateway and peeling off the layers because it's well, a, it's inspiring me to talk about food and nourishment more in the school that I teach and in the coaching that I do because so much of the space I'm holding is, like, next to you in what you're talking about with Yeah. Learning how to un numb yourself, you know, up leveling your system so that you can handle more, you know, of your of your self discovery and all of this school stuff. But nourishment, particularly food wise, isn't, like, on my mind really in this context, but now it is, and it makes so much sense. It's really
Speaker 4
Yeah. It's really
Speaker 2
Yeah. Cool.
Speaker 3
You know, I see I've seen it a lot too. I feel like nervous system healing and, like, trauma healing is really like, that's kind of the fad thing right now, you know. You're in the background. Eat. And and they're talking about how it's so hard when they're processing this stuff. It's so difficult to process this stuff. And I'm like, because your body is utilizing nutrients to process your junk. And no wonder you feel so just like it's too hard. It's too difficult. Because if you're dredging stuff up and you don't have the fuel to handle it, you are gonna feel like your life is falling apart because that's kinda what's happening. Like, your body is falling apart in a way. Like, it is too much for your body to handle without the energy to handle it.
Speaker 2
There's a a woman the woman who coined the term free birth, her name is Janine Pavardi Baker. And the other day, a woman who knew her told me that one of her quotes when she was alive was a woman's place is in her body. And I've just been isn't that so good?
Speaker 3
Yes.
Speaker 2
I love it so much. I've been thinking a lot about it since she said it. Just what a, like, just what a perfect statement that is.
Speaker 3
It is. It it's like end period done.
Speaker 2
I have nothing else to say here. It's so good. Alright. Well, anything else before we wrap up that should be said on the Free Verse Society podcast? You know so much about moms and nursing and pregnancy? Anything anything for the moms to blow our minds about how we should feed ourselves?
Speaker 3
I think minerals are one thing that women should be aware of. Just getting enough salt, you know, high quality salt, looking at salt as a supplement. And, calcium is especially at one. If you're in that era of building human beings and building bones, whether that be before you birth them or after you birth them through breastfeeding, you are rapidly, the the calcium, and our bodies will expend calcium, at the expense of itself, including disintegrating our own bones in order to give babies their bones. So a lot of women post pregnancy, especially after multiples, they will find that their teeth are really struggling, have a lot of cavities, which the teeth are a reflection of the bones. And so a lot of us need to be much more aware of our calcium intake, especially if we're dairy free. We are not getting enough bioavailable calcium at all, and that one can really wreck our metabolisms. It can make us feel really burnt out. Of course, magnesium is important and, of course, potassium is important. Kind of those first four, main minerals they're called, which is sodium, calcium, potassium, and magnesium. But sometimes I feel like we get such a focus on magnesium in the health space that we forget, like, calcium is a really basic nutrient, especially if you are, in the business of building babies.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Okay. That seems simple enough. So just like raw milk and raw cheese and Yep. Meat.
Speaker 3
Yep. Just dairy and it. Well yes. Well cooked veggies can be a good a good an okay source. And then even things like pearl powder, eggshell powder that you can easily make yourself, can be great great sources as well.
Speaker 2
Yum. Alright. Cool. Well, I obviously have to ask you since you told me before we were recording that you listened to the podcast. Yes. Are you gonna free birth?
Speaker 4
When are
Speaker 3
you gonna get pregnant? What's your deal? Soon. Probably in the next year or so. I'm I'm I'm not sure yet. I there's a a really great midwife in the area that is, like, very hands off, and so I like that. I don't know. It's always like my guy's a little bit, I don't know if I wanna do it alone, and I feel like I could. So I'm I'm still on the fence. I'm sure most women kinda know that, but or feel that feeling.
Speaker 2
But you're you're imagining calling pregnancy in in your life.
Speaker 3
Definitely. Definitely. And owning it myself. Like, I I feel, like, completely confident in in my body's ability.
Speaker 2
Of course. I would hope so.
Speaker 3
And hearing all the amazing stories on this podcast, I've listened to probably, oh my gosh, at least a hundred. It's just, like, incredible. It is incredible. There it is. Every single one is life changing.
Speaker 2
You'll have to come back on once you have your baby.
Speaker 3
I would love that.
Speaker 2
Do you think you'll birth in your RV?
Speaker 3
Yeah. If we're still in there, that's what's gonna have to happen.
Speaker 2
I guess that could wrap up your story. So, like, what does your life look like right now? Your your home base is in Southern California, and what do you guys do on the road?
Speaker 3
Yeah. So we just kind of right now, we we had planned to just, like, right when we got in here, travel just, immediately all the time. It didn't quite work out that way. It was a little bit more of an adjustment than I thought. Surprise. Surprise. Our b life is not what people portray. That's online. So it's one of those things where, we have a home base, we have family close, and then we can pick up and go whenever we want to. And we are definitely gonna travel a lot more next year and see a lot more. But right now, we kind of travel a little bit here and there just because, we're tied here for work sometimes.
Speaker 2
Okay. And what does your work look like these days?
Speaker 3
Yeah. So my work right now, I just, I just started my own podcast. We're only seven episodes in. So What? Primarily focused on the podcast. I have my community, my fully enriched students, my back end community. I really pour a lot of time and love and effort into them. And then, we're working on some some new things. You know, things are shifting and things are changing. So we're going through big shifts as as a business to make sure that we're offering what we need to be offering.
Speaker 2
Cool. I love the vague the vague, the mysterious answer.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. We we are, definitely, doing a lot of work, but I I feel like whenever I promise something, if somebody's listening, they're gonna be like, when is Oh my god. X y z coming out? When is x y z coming out? Nineteen. Exactly. I've learned my lesson in keeping things a little bit more vague.
Speaker 2
Fair enough.
Speaker 3
But, yeah, our primary primarily, I work on, our community, our fully nourished students, and that is our course, but we have a private community that supports our course students. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Gotcha. Fun. Okay. Cool. So how can women find you and find out about you?
Speaker 3
Yeah. I'm primarily active on Instagram at just cash wellness or, my podcast, the fully nourished podcast. And that was, like, our our primary place to come and, see what I'm all about.
Speaker 2
Awesome. Love it. Well, I'm sure lots of women will be hitting you up after this to take your your cool course. Awesome. Well, I appreciate your time.
Speaker 3
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2
I hope you enjoyed the show today. You can support this podcast by donating to it on free birth society dot com and leaving an awesome review on whatever platform you listen on. The more reviews, the more visibility the show gets, so let's spread the word of Sovereign Birth. We've always got a lot going on at Free Birth Society, and you can find out about all of it at free birth society dot com, at free birth society on Instagram, and opt in to my newsletter below in the show notes. We offer courses on free birth, authentic midwifery, and the blood mysteries, as well as one on one coaching, in person retreats, and, of course, our annual women's festival. Our exclusive vetted private membership is definitely something to check out if you're looking for a community of wise sisters. Together, we rise. We must speak our stories, claim our lives, and support one another. This is the living revolution, and I am so grateful to be in it with all of you. I'll leave you with our epic Free Birth Society theme song, Wild Woman by Aruba Red.
Speaker 4
I honor you for the wisdom you held, the ancient traditions of plant medicine and womb magic. I feel the spirit of the ancestors as I place my hands upon my belly. This sacred portal will be honored, Eons upon light beams of survival, withstanding the eradication of our power by design. I will not allow the separation of our young to be forced upon me. My sisters will no longer birth in in captivity. The picket line we define from burning our wild women to paralyzing us and drugging our babes. Strapped down in a clinical white bed, drying up the milk from our breasts, keep your needles. My family will never again be doomed to chase those dragons, all your poison. We reject your fear. We choose love. Everything with intention, death, ascension. I will fly and bring her back from the star.
