Letter from Your Unborn Child

May 14th, 2012

Dear Mom and Dad,

I know you’re there. Sometimes, when you let go a little bit, I can feel you.

And yet, to you I feel like an unfulfilled wish, a memory that hasn’t yet occurred.

I think you know I’m here, too. I know at some level you can feel my pull. Perhaps it’s what keeps you going on this path that has been so hard for you. It doesn’t have to be, you know.

You don’t have to force me to come. The laws of the universe are not altered by struggling, groveling or prayers of desperation.

Remember, I am a miracle, and I’m looking for light.

I’m looking for an opening. Receptivity. Softness. The life force needs an opening to express itself.

Sometimes I see yours, but your struggling effort to do everything right closes it off before I can reach you.

Relax your body and quiet your senses. Return to your deepest self. That’s what I’m drawn to.

It doesn’t matter to me if you think positive thoughts all the time. Be who you are. Be where you are, not where you think you should be. Honor yourself. When you are angry, stomp your feet. Yell. When you are sad, cry. When you are frightened, see beyond to the miracle, Clear the way.

Please don’t force yourself to do anything that feels like it will hurt you in order to get me. I won’t come that way.

It does matter that you nourish and care for yourself.  Only you can be responsible for your well-being, and I want you to be here for me, for a long time.

You won’t be able to accept and love me fully and without conditions until you can first do this for yourself. Be a vessel of yourself fully, before you try to be a vessel for me.

Pay attention to that still small voice inside of you that longs to experience unconditional love. And express that love where you are, now.

Don’t wait for me to come before you live your life. Live and love your life fully

How can I love being a part of your life if you don’t?

Remember, I’m a miracle, and I’m looking for your light. I’m looking for an opening, for your receptivity.

There must be space in your lives, for you and for me.

If you scramble about in search of me, you will lose me.

Pay attention to your deepest self. That’s where the light is. That’s where the opening is.

I can see your light when you’re laughing, when you’re dancing, and even when you cry.

I see it when you’re real.

Please stop listening to all the outside voices telling you what you should do.

Nobody out there has your answer.

Listen to the still, small voice inside that still lives in the miraculous.

I am still in spirit, and I’m drawn to yours.

You don’t know how or when I’m coming to you.

But I will come on my own time, in my own way, if you let me.

Loosen your grasp. Lower your expectations about how it’s all supposed to look. Whatever your expectations, I’ll never live up to them.

I am not your image of me. I am so much more.  I am a whisper of possibility that arises out of the depths of nature’s way.

Consider the possibility that I have been orchestrating this entire journey so that you can learn to open your heart to yourself so you can open to me.

Hope. Trust. Open.

Remember, I am a miracle.

So are you.

I am unconditional love waiting to manifest. So are you. Allow me to enter in my way. Stop fighting, forcing, pleading, and researching how to get me. I come when you stop trying to control life.

I come out of Grace.

Open your way to the miracle.

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New Retreat Date: Los Angeles (area), CA – June 8-11

May 11th, 2012

ONLY 5 ROOMS (ONSITE) STILL AVAILABLE – Open registration for all in-town commuters

http://thefertilesoul.com/shop/retreats/re12-0608-the-fertile-soul-retreat

RETREAT OVERVIEW:

This is an “All-Inclusive” retreat offering – both Room and Meals will be included in your tuition costs. The retreat will begin on Friday afternoon at 4:00pm with an introduction to Traditional Chinese (TCM) and an overview of the schedule ahead (specific times will be posted upon registration).  This is a great opportunity to meet with Randine and your fellow guests that are on a similar journey! The Retreat will continue Saturday and Sunday morning and go throughout the days until early evening (usually end each day about 6:00pm) and close the weekend on Monday morning with a group Healing Circle and acupuncture treatment with Dr. Lewis. There will be intermission breaks for Lunch and a few shorter breaks to stretch your legs and get some fresh air throughout the day.

Meals will be included in your tuition and served onsite at the Retreat Center (all meals throughout your stay – starting with Dinner Friday and going through Lunch on Monday). If you do decide to leave during meal times, we recommend that you stay close during these breaks as the schedule is full and we will need to start each session promptly in order to maximize your time with Dr. Lewis.

Please contact us for more information on the The Fertile Soul Retreat – http://www.thefertilesoul.com/pages/contact.php

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FREE CONFERENCE CALL – TODAY, May 7 @ 7:00pm (EST)

May 7th, 2012

Free Conference Call TODAY – Monday, May 7 @ 7 PM EST

JingShen

Q&A with Dr. Randine Lewis

To Join in dial 605-475-4000 then access code 794774#

(Those calling from Canada should call 805-360-1075 and then you will be prompted to enter the original number and access code)

Our June retreat in Southern California will focus on bringing jing and shen together, wherever you are in your reproductive years. According to Chinese medicine, regardless of age, fertility is the proper combination of jing and shen. Jing is essence, governed by the kidney system of energies (water); and shen is spirit, governed by the heart system of energies (fire)

Life comes from the combination of essence (water) and spirit (fire). When we are younger, we have more essence; as we age we have more spirit. The older we are, it is more essential to nourish essence with tonics, diet, rest, herbs, acupuncture and exercises that increase blood flow to the reproductive organs. But because of the percentage of shen as we approach our perimenopausal years, its even more important to attend to the spirit.

Nourish your spirit, and live the passion of your own existence first. Only then can you provide adequate essence for another.

Looking forward to connecting with you all on Monday night!

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IVF Drugs Linked to Childhood Cancer [Article - Telegraph, UK]

April 30th, 2012

“… Fertility-boosting drugs could more than double the risk of subsequent offspring developing childhood leukaemia, academics warn today.” – Telegraph, UK

4/24/12 – European researchers reported over a two fold increased risk in two forms of childhood leukemia, in children conceived with fertility drugs.

Almost a decade ago, the Wall Street Journal reported: Babies born as the result of IVF with ICSI are twice as likely to be born with major birth defects than those conceived naturally.

Whether or not these research reports can be proven is not significant to me. What I look at is what the drugs are doing. Any drug which stimulates the ovaries to artificially recruit follicles that the body naturally deselected, are already at increased risk. Further, forcefully injecting sperm that are incapable of penetrating the egg on their own, obviously puts the potential of new life at risk.

Nature knows what it’s doing. Our own body’s wisdom selects the follicle that it deems the healthiest to become the dominant ovulatory follicle. Reproductive medicine will sacrifice that one for the drug induced many; just to increase the statistical likelihood that fertilization will take place. IVF drugs cannot and do not increase the health of the germ cells; they force fertilization. If the underlying health is compromised and fertilization is forced, the starting point of the new life is already at jeopardy.

I doubt the procedures themselves are responsible. The drugs? Not so sure. I have always held to the irrefutable fact that nature knows best. When we can enhance the health of the reproductive system during the tonic growth phase of follicular growth when protein synthesis and chromosomal selection occur (months before ovulation), we improve the likelihood of healthy egg and sperm production, no matter what methods are employed.

I lectured on this topic at a workshop which was attended by patients and reproductive clinic staff, including reproductive endocrinologists. As I taught the participants the life cycle of the follicle and what could improve ovarian and sperm health, I asked the medical audience if anything I was saying was untrue. An RE responded, “We know what you’re saying is true; we just can’t do anything about it with what we have to offer, so we don’t pay attention to it. Your method seems to offer that missing ingredient.

Most of the patients I treat are over 40. Most are at an increased statistical risk for chromosomal abnormalities and poor response to IVF. Yet, when they take the time to nourish the health of the body, mind, and spirit, natural conception is more likely to occur. IVF success rates greatly increase. And those that have chromosomal abnormalities, birth defects, and childhood cancers are virtually non-existent. As one of my teachers asked, “What is the truth you are attending to – labs and medical results, or the potential of your own spirit?” To me the latter is where miracles occur; not in the laboratory. Let medicine intervene where it is meant to – after you have done everything humanly possible to improve your own health; not before or instead.

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Stop the Problem Solving Approach!

April 10th, 2012

Chinese medicine is based on the maintenance of harmony. Yet how can harmony be maintained?  I used to think of harmony as synonymous with balance – almost like walking a tightrope where the left and right sides have to be equalized.

This is how many people approach healing and fertility, too. Moderation, balance, harmony. Not too much of this, not too much of that. While it is true that too much of anything will make the organism unstable, life carries a miraculous ability to return to equilibrium with or without our help. We do not have to keep ourselves walking the tightrope of life, too afraid to be set off balance. Life is meant to be lived, fully, vibrantly, and sometimes in excess.

You don’t grow your hair, beat your heart or create skin cells. Nor can you create a baby through living a controlled life.

I recall a woman I treated who went through an IVF cycle just before the holidays. She carefully managed every controllable aspect of her life, yet her pregnancy test came back negative just before Christmas. So distraught at the unfairness of life when she did everything right, she went to the other extreme – eating and drinking in excess, smoking cigarettes, staying up late and partying until New Year passed. She never got her period. The next pregnancy test came back positive. And yes, the baby was just fine, adjusting to the excesses that are a part of life.

Remember when our mothers thought it was ok to drink, smoke and even diet during pregnancy? We turned out kind of okay. Obviously, I don’t advocate this. Moderation and balance tend to induce health and well being. But what we can control needs to be balanced with what we cannot. We can’t control life itself. Life is not a problem to be solved; it is an organic process to be lived. We try, we fail. We fall, we get back up. Sometimes life works out the way we expect it to, sometimes it doesn’t. We go on and do the best we can, laughing, crying, and  making it up as we go along. Life is not composed of rules to be followed.

Life is the way it is, not the way we would have it be. Our individual life expression is always in harmony with the whole. It’s laws are carried in the heart, subject to a higher law than imposed order. The Tao te Ching tells us that when man forgets the Tao, he creates laws and rules. Order is a poor substitute for the spirit’s unimpeded expression.

Life comes through the friction of opposites – the highest ecstasy of the lowest expression. Birth itself is violent, messy, and life threatening. yet from it comes a love so tender, nothing can threaten it. Stop trying to control, manage, or fix yourself. Give yourself over to life as it is. Let the spirit of life use you as you are, desires and all. You aren’t a mistake to be remedied. You are life’s expression, bursting with harmonious imbalance, longing to be expressed!

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Free Conference Call Tomorrow – Tuesday, April 3 @ 9 PM EST

April 2nd, 2012

Free Conference Call Tomorrow – Tuesday, April 3 @ 9 PM EST

Pregnancy Enhancement during PeriMenopause

Q&A with Dr. Randine Lewis

This daunting term is almost meaningless. It simply means that hormones are fluctuating in women during their later reproductive years. Perimenopause can last for many years, during which time a woman is still capable of conceiving.  One study reported that when a woman enters perimenopause, she still has, on average, ten thousand eggs remaining.  It isn’t until a woman has been without a period for one year that she is considered to be in menopause. Then she is no longer capable of bearing children with her own eggs.

This transition occurs at multiple levels – ovarian output fluctuates; blood flow to the ovaries diminishes, and the biopotency of the FSH molecule changes. The hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis becomes more delicate.

According to Chinese medicine, this is one of the most rich times in a woman’s life. Although she may experience symptoms of this transition – like reduced libido, decreased cervical fluid, irregular menstruation, moodiness, insomnia, hot flashes and night sweats, these are not considered symptoms of disease. They are an invitation as the energies shift from a focus on lower reproductive output to one where the spirit dominates.

Most all energetic transitions will produce symptoms. When you know that they are natural and necessary, they will become less problematic. When they are resisted, it exacerbates liver qi stagnation, aggravating the symptoms. Acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine can help ease this transition and reduce symptoms, while one is trying to conceive.

Reducing sugar, wheat and refined carbohydrates helps the metabolic changes. Supplement with essential antioxidants, minerals, CoQ10, and fish oil. Light exercise like walking, biking, or swimming helps reduce depressive symptoms, especially when performed out of doors. Inner body meditations can help ease symptoms of anxiety. Perform the femoral massage daily before ovulation if you are still trying to conceive. We also have formulated a Fertile Soul herbal blend to assist and enhance fertility during this time.

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Stop the Problem Solving Approach!

April 2nd, 2012

Chinese medicine is based on the maintenance of harmony. Yet how can harmony be maintained?  I used to think of harmony as synonymous with balance – almost like walking a tightrope where the left and right sides have to be equalized.

This is how many people approach healing and fertility, too. Moderation, balance, harmony. Not too much of this, not too much of that. While it is true that too much of anything will make the organism unstable, life carries a miraculous ability to return to equilibrium with or without our help. We do not have to keep ourselves walking the tightrope of life, too afraid to be set off balance. Life is meant to be lived, fully, vibrantly, and sometimes in excess.

You don’t grow your hair, beat your heart or create skin cells. Nor can you create a baby through living a controlled life.

I recall a woman I treated who went through an IVF cycle just before the holidays. She carefully managed every controllable aspect of her life, yet her pregnancy test came back negative just before Christmas. So distraught at the unfairness of life when she did everything right, she went to the other extreme – eating and drinking in excess, smoking cigarettes, staying up late and partying until New Year passed. She never got her period. The next pregnancy test came back positive. And yes, the baby was just fine, adjusting to the excesses that are a part of life.

Remember when our mothers thought it was ok to drink, smoke and even diet during pregnancy? We turned out kind of okay. Obviously, I don’t advocate this. Moderation and balance tend to induce health and well being. But what we can control needs to be balanced with what we cannot. We can’t control life itself. Life is not a problem to be solved; it is an organic process to be lived. We try, we fail. We fall, we get back up. Sometimes life works out the way we expect it to, sometimes it doesn’t. We go on and do the best we can, laughing, crying, and  making it up as we go along. Life is not composed of rules to be followed.

Life is the way it is, not the way we would have it be. Our individual life expression is always in harmony with the whole. It’s laws are carried in the heart, subject to a higher law than imposed order. The Tao te Ching tells us that when man forgets the Tao, he creates laws and rules. Order is a poor substitute for the spirit’s unimpeded expression

Life comes through the friction of opposites – the highest ecstasy of the lowest expression. Birth itself is violent, messy, and life threatening. yet from it comes a love so tender, nothing can threaten it. Stop trying to control, manage, or fix yourself. Give yourself over to life as it is. Let the spirit of life use you as you are, desires and all. You aren’t a mistake to be remedied. You are life’s expression, bursting with harmonious imbalance, longing to be expressed!

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IVIG and Intralipid Infusion Treatment

March 30th, 2012

Treatments such as intravenous immunoglobulin therapy or intralipid infusions are sometimes suggested for women with autoimmune conditions whose immune systems react negatively to an implanting embryo. An embryo, composed of “self” and “non-self” can confuse a weakened or stressed immune system, whose primary job it is to kill off the foreign (non-self) invador. When the immune system is confused, it often reverts from its highest directive, to differentiate, to its lowest default, which is to kill.

The woman’s body can react negatively against the pregnancy itself, to components of the cell wall, and develop antibodies, which protect her from accepting in what her body perceives as threatening. She may have elevated antiphosphlipid antibodies, antithyroid antibodies, anticardiolipin antibodies, antinuclear antibodies, anti-lupus anticoagulant, or elevated (and activated) natural killer cells. The blood is often thickened so it can clot off the blood supply to the offending threat, and starve it.

The infusions of protein and blood products listed above are intended to bind the antibodies and deactivate them. While it can temporarily clear the blood of the activated immune system components, it is not curative.

Chinese medicine seeks to diagnose and treat the cause of the autoimmune reactivity, not its manifestation. When you look for the underlying cause, you are working at the level of energy; not strictly at the level of identifiable form, where it is more important to specifically identify and suppress the elevated marker of immunity. So, whether it is ATA, ACA, APA, ANA, PTT or elevated NK cells, we look at the energy that gives rise to the expression. Almost always there is a weakening of the Spleen system of energies, which governs internal recognition, and a strong sense of self.  The weak spleen energies will allow for some excess factor to be present, energetically expressed as dampness, stasis, stagnation, or heat.

When we can fortify the weakened spleen energies and reduce the presence of the excess factor, the conditions for the autoimmune reaction go away on their own. In my experience, it is much more potent to work energetically than to chase around the manifestation. Yet, the two approaches can be quite effective together; you don’t have to choose natural healing over those which are more invasive or vice versa.

I have worked with many women who had autoimmune infertility, who were concurrently being treated by Western medicine. When we can address the reason for the weakened spleen energies (diet, anxiety, over-thinking, poor sense of self), we can nourish them, and bring the body into a state where it doesn’t perceive components of self as a threat. We reduce the excess factors through herbs and acupuncture, and the internal fight abates. In the meantime, IL or IVIG treatments can bind up the circulating antibodies while the body is in a state of healing. We have treated the cause and the manifestation

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Husband/Wife Imbalance

March 28th, 2012

Chinese medicine has a diagnostic pattern known as “husband/wife imbalance,” a rather severe disturbance where the creative, expansive, life giving forces within have been surpassed by the contracting, catabolic energies. Acupuncture treatment involves helping the individual restore equilibrium, and return to a state of homeostasis.

Sometimes life challenges our normal patterns of creation and destruction. At times the forward trajectory that we have been traveling can no longer remain unchecked. Our procreative energies are not meant to move ever forward until death. Human beings are in a constant state of breakdown and catabolism as well. Our forward moving energies can become exhausted from chronic stress, moving us toward a more dense or compressed state of energy, where we are no longer in procreative mode. We must let something die.

At birth we were endowed not only with an abundance of “source qi”, we were also granted the seed of our original nature. Throughout life, we forget our true nature by moving toward worldly goals and achievements, and away from our original nature. We exchange worldly experience and a false sense of self for our true face. When we become locked into a fear based state of separation and lose nature’s intended destiny for us, we pave the way for separation of yin and yang energies within.

At certain times in our life we are granted turning points, where we are provided an opportunity to turn within, and restore our original nature. Rarely are these turning points happy times. They usually appear in the wake of a deep inner or outer challenge – a chronic illness, loss of outward identity, divorce, infertility… One now has the opportunity to wake up to the memory of their lost original nature, or their true path will remain hidden, unfulfilled, and yin and yang will continue to separate toward disease and death.

A further exacerbation of this imbalance can be found in relationship. Oftentimes the expansive male energies have been suppressed by the needs of the couple for a child. The wife occupies a place of control, and the relationship itself is no longer one of spontaneous love and creative expansion; it has become heavy, toxic, and unfulfilling. This dynamic of control will need to be interrupted or the marriage is doomed. The yin/yang equilibrium must be restored.

When a woman with a husband/wife imbalance is trying to conceive, she will be unable. Balance must be restored by turning inward; paradoxically away from the outward pursuit of a child. She must restore herself first, and this is often the last thing she feels capable of doing. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to turn inward when it seems like the only way to survive is to have a child. She must stop the heavy, toxic, stressful patterns. She must move inward, see herself and her life as it is, and reintegrate these distorted energies through loving self-acceptance, and returning to her original source. The disintegration of the old allows a creative reversal, and a new emergent pattern of creation can be restored.

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The Spiritual Pivot

March 19th, 2012

One of the earliest recorded works of medicine; the fundamental doctrine of Chinese Medicine is the Huang Di Nei Jing So Wen Ling Shu, dated approximately two centuries BCE. These two volumes (Su Wen and Ling Shu) comprise a dialog between the Yellow Emperor and his physician, Qi Bo, on the workings of nature as it pertains to the human body, the origin of disease and its cure.

The second volume, called the Ling Shu or Spiritual Pivot, discusses the theory and application of acupuncture.  Chapter 8 of the Spiritual Pivot makes the recognition, “Before needling, one must be rooted in spirit.”  My interpretation of this sentence is that until one is in touch with one’s spirit – both the practitioner’s and the patient’s, the treatment will be ineffective.

All rue healing comes through the heart, the home of the spirit. If we take this all the way through, there are no healers, unless their primary motive is to bring one in harmony with one’s spirit, where all healing originates.

I teach and work with a community of practitioners whom I consider experts in Chinese medicine and fertility. I don’t call them healers; nor do I refer to myself or anyone else as a healer. We are so cut off from the healing power of our own spirit, if we place our healing in the hands of another; we potentially place ourselves at the mercy of someone who is one step further away from the healing power of our own heart. The word pivot refers to an essential turning point, where one turns away from outer help and toward the power of ones own inner wisdom.

Chinese medicine has shamanic roots where unless a turn is made to the spiritual source within, there will be no remedy, no cure. One will continue to be overtaken by what used to be considered evil spirits. These are no different than what we would consider origins of disease:

External pathogens;

Dietary or environmental toxins;

A posturing of anger that keeps one in a state of internal distress;

A state of victimhood, where one is at the mercy of another;

Unexamined, subconscious fear.

These can show up as chronic inflammatory conditions, hormonal imbalances, cancer, strokes, bleeding disorders, reproductive disturbances, heart attacks, you name it. Where disease has appeared, its origin is in losing ones resonance with ones own heart and place in the world.

Healing can be addictive, if one continues to rely on outside sources for ultimate healing. If there were a true healer, they would render their work irrelevant and put themselves out of business. So, in my view, real healing is helping someone to raise their energetic level to the point where they become their own healer. They transcend the need to be healed.

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