Spenser Brassard is a certified life coach and the author of Fertile Ground: A Mind Body Approach to Getting Pregnant Without It Taking Over Your Life and host of The Fertile Ground Podcast, which has more than a half a million downloads. She is the creator of Fertility Mind-Body Mastery, a program that shows women how to harness the power of the mind-body connection to get pregnant. While navigating her own fertility journey (eight years of trying to conceive and no baby) Spenser felt a strong pull to work with TTC women and help mamas find their babies. For her, coaching is more than a career, it’s a calling. She’s been married to the love of her life for 13 years and together, they’re raising their two boys.
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Hey mama! Welcome back to another episode of the Well -Nursed Mama podcast. I cannot wait for you to listen to my interview today. This is probably my new favorite interview and I know it's probably not fair to say that I love one guest more than another because I truly love all of the guests that I have on the podcast and I wouldn't invite a guest on the podcast if I didn't believe in what they were saying and want to learn more about what they teach but I walked away from today's interview with literal goosebumps and I was just like on cloud nine.
It was the most amazing conversation and I really really hope that you internalize what we're talking about today. I got to sit down with my friend Spencer and we talked about fertility. It's our first episode about fertility on the podcast and I wanted it to be a really good and special one.
In our conversation we actually talk about a completely different approach to fertility. Something that you probably have never thought of before or maybe have once heard but since forgotten about and she is totally going to change the way that you approach and perceive your fertility journey.
Now I do want to say that if you are currently in the thick of your fertility journey and it is kind of like an open wound where you've got lots of really big raw emotions around it and it's a really sensitive subject and it's something that's triggering for you or something that's really hard for you to talk about or listen to, I want you to know that we do talk a lot about infertility and we do talk about the struggles that many women face in their fertility journey,
but there's a big butt here. What I really really want is for you to open up your heart and your mind enough to let Spencer in because she is going to, I think she is going to bring so much peace to your heart and your mind and your soul about fertility, whether or not you are currently struggling with fertility.
I know, I know this is a really sensitive subject for a lot of women and I want to put that disclaimer out there. I want to put that quote. trigger warning out there so you know that it is going to bring up a lot of emotion, but I really, really, really hope that you will give space to listen to our conversation today because it's not about what you can do different with your diet.
It's not about what you can do different with your lifestyle. It's not about the two week of weight. It's not about IVF. It's about your mindset. And I know that sounds so cheesy and almost like a slap in the face.
If you have been struggling with infertility and you're like, really? You're just gonna tell me to think different and that's gonna make me feel better, please. If you've been here for a while, hopefully you have an understanding of the kinds of guests that I have on here and how I try to approach these sensitive topics of motherhood.
And I really hope that you will trust me when I say that today's conversation will be that missing piece that you need to really just bring peace of mind and fill in all of those gaps of your fertility journey.
I really, I know I'm rambling at this point, but I really invite you to trust me and just know that this conversation is worth the listen. I think it's also the longest interview I've done because I genuinely did not want our conversation to end.
There are so many golden nuggets in this interview that I was just like, oh my gosh, as somebody who isn't struggling with infertility, that completely changed my mindset. And it took so many feelings and emotions off my plate and made me feel so much more.
peace and I'm not in the thick of it right now. So I invite you to trust me. I invite you to be vulnerable and give space for Spencer and your fertility journey because it is it is so worth it I promise.
So I'm just gonna let you get into the interview. I could ramble all day but we had such a good interview that we can just get into it. So with that being said please trust me listen to the entire interview there are some especially really really really profound statements that Spencer makes towards the end of the interview where I literally just sat there with my mouth open and I was like oh my gosh like I don't even know how to process what you just said so please listen at the very end trust me and if you know a mama who needs to hear what you're about to hear in today's conversation please don't forget to share that episode with her.
So my friends Momma, let's jump into today's episode with Spencer all about the mind -body medicine with fertility. Hey Momma, my name is Brooke and just like you, I want to show it for my kids in the best way possible.
But you and I both know that that means our cup needs to be filled first. Here on the Well -Nourished Momma podcast, we learn about all the different ways we can nourish our bodies, minds, and souls in every stage of motherhood, including pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.
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Head to today's show notes to get on the VIP list. Spencer Brassard is a certified life coach and author of Fertile Ground, a mind body approach to getting pregnant without it taking over your life, and host of the Fertile Ground podcast, which has more than half a million downloads.
She's the creator of Fertility Mind Body Mastery, a program that shows women how to harness the power of the mind body connection to get pregnant. While navigating her own fertility journey, eight years of trying to conceive and no baby, Spencer felt a strong pull to work with trying to conceive women and help mamas find their babies.
For her, coaching is more than a career, it's a calling. She's been married to the love of her life for 13 years and together they're raising their two boys. Hey Spencer, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast today.
Thank you for having me, I'm so excited to be here. I am so excited to talk to you. I don't know if you knew this, but this is actually our first episode about fertility. No, I didn't. Oh, I love paving the way.
I know, so you get the honors of being the first one to talk about fertility and really giving us some in -depth experience with it. So before we like jump into the nitty -gritty of what we're gonna talk about today, can you just tell us about your own fertility journey and how it's impacted your life and career?
Yeah, well, it was eight years long. So to put it in a nutshell, tried to conceive at the young age of 24 and didn't happen. And so I do what most people do, which is they try absolutely everything, diets, restrictions, testing, making sure your environment isn't toxic, doctors, naturopaths, tarot card readers, Reiki, you name it, I tried it.
And I lost myself. I had no idea who I was and what I was even going for almost, right? Like you kind of are like, oh yeah, I remember at one point being like, I'm doing this for a baby. Oh yeah, like you forget you're in such a race to the finish line that you don't even know what you're going for anymore.
And I think we can all kind of relate to that in a way we get so caught up in reaching that feeling of chasing and reaching that we don't even remember what it is that we're. actually searching for. So I have always kind of been interested in psychology and I heard about this coaching certification with Martha Beck who is Oprah's or who was Oprah's life coach and I decided to become a coach and realize that our minds can influence our bodies you know especially because I was diagnosed with unexplained infertility there was no physical explanation as to what was going on.
So I did this deep dive into myself my psych actually feeling my feelings and processing everything I had been through up until that point and it was unbelievable because I stopped suffering I stopped believing that something outside of me was going to be the thing that brought me joy and instead realized that I could have it whenever I wanted by ultimately connecting with this present moment.
and so I decided to become a fertility coach even before I got pregnant because I wasn't suffering anymore and I thought more people need to know about this like you know more people need to know about the mind -body approach how we can connect our minds with our bodies to root us in right now and not miss this gorgeous life that we have so I did IVF and it didn't work out and then I did another frozen embryo transfer a few months after that and it was such a pivotal moment in my journey because I had realized you know I'm not going to blame myself for this anymore my worth is not dependent on being a mother being pregnant like I got my own back and it was a really pivotal moment to just say I don't know why it didn't work and that's okay and I kind of gave that back to I don't know a higher power god the universe and I was just like I'm not I'm not holding on to this anymore and then two months after that I got pregnant naturally oh my gosh right I have tools that's so cool after all of this time and it was it was really like evidence and proof you know in my opinion the the miracle happened before I got pregnant because the miracle was seeing myself as whole and worthy regardless of needing to be pregnant regardless of needing to be a mom and that was what I was going for all along so the baby was honestly just a cherry on top of all of that and then what's beautiful is I take everything that I learned and I apply it I applied it to pregnancy I applied it to labor I applied it to motherhood it was a beautiful experience that I copy and paste into every category of my life that's absolutely amazing and I'm sure I don't want to put words in your mouth so correct me if I'm wrong but I'm sure that when you came to that realization of my worth is not tied to my ability to conceive or carry or how many children I bear,
that doesn't negate the fact that you still wanted to be a mom, right? Like you still wanted to have children and you still wanted to have that journey, but recognizing that your worth is not tied to that journey is the difference, right?
Exactly, so it shifted, like I say, it shifted from a need to a healthy and happy desire, right? So before it was like, I need this to prove I'm worthy, right, like I need this baby, right? And I was shifting and changing my whole life around this fertility journey, but eventually what I did is I shifted, you know, I decided that no, my fertility journey is a piece of my life, right?
Just like motherhood, like motherhood is so beautiful because... I hadn't had my fertility journey. I think it would really have engulfed me and it would have become my entire identity. And I love having the freedom to be more than a mother right now.
And now I have two boys. We got pregnant with our second just quick two first try, which is ridiculous. But I love the idea that women are allowed to be more than our reproductive journeys, right? And I think that's a big shift from patriarchal thinking that that's all we're good for.
So it just feels so freeing for me to know that. And yeah, it was. It was a shift from this desperate need to this healthy, happy desire. And it was really incredible to go through. That is such an incredible story.
And I know we're going to refer back to that as we talk about our conversation today, because what you share in your business and your podcast and your book and your brand and everything about what you do, you are all about another perspective on fertility, right?
A lot of the fertility accounts that I follow are like fertility dieticians or fertility doctors or things like this. And those are all important aspects of fertility, right? But what you bring to the table is we can't forget the other perspective.
We can't forget about this other little piece. And that piece is our mindset, right? The connection between mindset and fertility. So can you just kind of dive a little bit deeper for us and help us understand how our mind -body connection impacts our fertility, and if there's any research behind it and what we can learn from your experience and research?
Yeah, I think that's such a great question because the way I see mind -body work and mindset is somewhat of a foundation, because I believe that any action we take, if we're taking it from this space of...
maybe this will be it or oh, I'm not enough until I get there. It's that the action is always going to feel like a means to an end, right? It's always gonna be like, hey, I'm just gonna check one more thing off the list.
And so we lose our lives. We lose ourselves in that process when we're just going, going, going, doing, doing, doing, action, action, action. You know, another word for that is hustle culture. And it's kind of based on the belief that I won't be enough until I'm exhausted at the end of the day.
I won't be worthy of this baby until I am tired from everything that I did to try to have this baby. And that's just based on this belief that we believe we need to sacrifice in order to be worthy of something, that we need to sacrifice our joy.
But the research shows that pleasure, that rest, that presence and creating safety and having those things in your life despite going through something challenging and hard is... is medicine for the body.
Like if we think about mindfulness, for example, it's been around for thousands of years for a reason. It works. The research shown at the Delmar Center of Harvard is that they took a category of women, Alice Delmar.
She's one of the incredible researchers on mind -body medicine and it's linked to fertility. And she found that people who incorporated mind -body medicine, which typically means learning how to feel your feelings, process, giving yourself space to have it, not shaming yourself for having a quote unquote negative emotion, learning how to feel it through breathing modalities and social support also is a huge mind -body perspective because on the fertility journey,
you can imagine how shameful it can be, right? You feel like you're the only one in the world who's not getting pregnant when the research shows that one and six are currently struggling. And more so that we don't even know about, right?
Like really people keep this, their fertility journeys a secret. Miscarriage, for example, is a very hush -hush thing. And it's not until we open up, do we realize that we're not the only ones going through something like this.
So social support is one modality of mind -body medicine and it is research shows boost fertility immensely. And then another perspective of mind -body medicine is the willingness to feel safe in this moment, is the willingness to admit that we can be grateful for our lives right now and want more.
So it's the research, what it's showing right now is that the more we're able to feel safer in our minds, in our bodies and in our lives now, what happens is we shift out of the parasympathetic. state, sorry, the sympathetic nervous system of fight or flight and into the parasympathetic nervous system, which is also known as rest and digest, and another word for that is actually feed or breathe because we become more,
that lubrication is naturally enhanced in this state. So essentially what my body medicine does at the core is it shifts you out of survival and into the present moment, which another word for that could be thriving, like just being here, feeling safe to be here now.
And so physiologically it has a huge impact on the body because our nervous system is, it feels more settled. I wouldn't say it needs to feel calm all the time because I am a highly sensitive individual.
I didn't find that the goal was ever to be calm. The goal was always to be calm. to like let myself feel how I felt, to meet myself where I was at and to not shame myself anymore for having big emotions.
I know a lot of people think that, oh no, I have to be calm. I have to really calm down. I have to really relax. And for sure we need moments of that. But I really believe that what many women trying to conceive want more than anything now, having worked with hundreds of women is they just want to feel valid in their emotions.
They just want to feel valid in their thoughts. They just want to feel like it's okay to feel how they feel. And I think just that in and of itself is so disarming to the nervous system and can be one of the easiest ways to regulate this part of our bodies that is ideal for conception.
Not just for conception though, but just being happy. Not being anxious, not being depressed, just being happy. Yeah, I love that. The entire time you were talking, I kept thinking, oh my gosh, it sounds like she's building Maslow's triangle.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Do you know what I'm talking about? No, what are you talking about though? Okay, so for anybody who doesn't know, there's this theory, it's called Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
I had to pull it up on my phone so I could like double check. Basically, it's this triangle and it theorizes that in order for us to thrive as human beings, we have to have certain needs in a certain order in order to really reach our peak self.
So at the very bottom of the triangle, the base, right? This has to come first, is physiological needs. So that's things like breathing, food, water, shelter, clothing, sleep, right? The fundamentals.
Basically, yes. Without those things, nothing else matters. Okay, so we could argue. that, you know, our diet and our sleep and like those basic things are laying the foundation for our fertility journey and just our ability to thrive as a human being, right?
Well, the next part of the triangle right on top of physiological needs is safety and security. And that's a word that you kept saying over and over again was safety. If we can feel safe in our bodies and recognize that, you know, our bodies aren't out to get us, the universe isn't out to get us.
God isn't punishing us, however you want to view it. And we can start to accept, you know what, despite what's going on in my life, I can create a sense of safety with my mindset. And, you know, with my environment, we can, you know, maybe add more plants in our homes.
So there's more oxygen or whatever we want to do, right? We can create that level of safety. And then once that's in place, there's the next, the next step is love and belonging. So that's... This is a social connection, friendship, family, intimacy with your partner.
Vulnerability. Vulnerability, yeah. Bring up our hearts, huge components of fertility. Absolutely. And then the last two is self -esteem. So confidence, achievement, respect of others, wanting to be a unique individual.
And then the very top of the pyramid is self -actualization. And this says creativity, spontaneity, acceptance, experience, purpose, meaning, that crown jewel on top comes after we've built all those other layers.
And to me, what you're describing with this mind -body medicine is that second layer where it's that safety and security. Once we've got the fundamentals in place and we can at least keep those under control, then we can bring in this level of safety where it gives space for all of the other things to build us up and take us on our fertility journey in a safe and loving way.
Yeah, I think that's so cool, by the way. I've never even heard of that before. But one thing I wanna add is that the safety we're talking about is I think sometimes we look outside of ourselves to find safety.
We look to other people to make us feel safe. We look to our boss to make us feel safe. If we look to... Our spouse. Exactly. And whenever we are letting other people determine if our okayness without knowing how to do that ourselves, we become very dependent, right?
And not to say that we're not allowed to have some validation in relationships from time to time by any means. However, I always say when you know you have your own back, like no matter what, you are way less afraid to sail uncharted territory.
do scary things like IVF might be or IUI or even just what's honestly scary is opening your heart up to believing you can get pregnant again after so long. Can I risk opening up my heart to this being possible again?
Like will I know I have my own back? If I don't automatically default in that two week way to it not working out like I did for seven years and just say I don't know but I'm willing and I'm willing to risk opening up my heart up because I know I've learned how to create that safety and that security that I'll be okay no matter what and so that's like the that's that's what I think safety and security is so beneficial like things don't have to go your way outside of you to have facts and like I don't know about you that feels so lovely that feels so warm and cozy inside of my body.
It does. That is a journey that I have had to go on, not with my fertility, but with my husband deploying. We're a military family, and he's left twice since we've been married. And each time I go through this period where I'm like, I can't function without my husband.
Not like, you know, I can't feed my family or I can't keep a clean house and have kids, right? But like emotionally, it's like that safety and security net, like I need to have him here. And so the first couple of weeks that he leaves, it's always like, okay, how am I going to create this safety independent of him being here or being gone?
And you'd think I would have figured it out the first time, but we had to do it again, that's last time. But yeah, it's like this, it's this journey where you really do have to be like, okay, it's amazing that I have this person in my life that can help me feel safe and loved and secure no matter what happens, but you're absolutely right.
We need to have our own back and do that for ourselves because the longest relationship we're ever going to have in this life is with ourself. And we need to build that relationship because we're in it together, right?
That's what I say, I'm like, you know, we've been with ourselves since day one of conception, but you know what's so beautiful about the example you gave me is like you not feeling safe to do it on your own is also so valid, right?
So do you see how you can kind of like hold both truths at the same time of like, no, like that feeling, that emotion, that like fear is so valid. I'm like, yeah, of course I want him around. But then that shift, like the validity of how you feel is part of the safety.
Does that make sense? Oh my gosh, Kate, you just made it click. Yeah, that is so true. And it's, it's such a beautiful path because that is, that's what self -compassion is like at the core. That is self -compassion.
It's like how I feel, even if it's, I don't want to feel this way and I hate feeling this way. It is so valid. And that just the minute you decide it's valid, the body goes, okay, cool, we can feel this.
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So giving space for the and is what you're saying instead of making it an or situation, what you're saying is make it an and. Let two things be true at the same time. Yes, and you know what is so great about that is because that takes us right out of our head because it doesn't make any logical sense.
Really, right? Like our head's like, no, I wanna play one or the other but the body is like, ooh, I like this. And so we learn, I'm just gonna show my work though. We learn that the body feels really good sometimes when we give ourselves these very interesting ways of thinking.
And so that helps us detach from our thoughts. That helps us detach from these things being thoughts all the time and more so, ooh, but this made my body feel good. I'm gonna follow more of that. And then you just kind of build trust on that, right?
That's absolutely beautiful. I have a feeling this is gonna tie into something I wanted to ask you about. I know that you've had the chance to sit down with Elizabeth Gilbert. She's the author of Eat, Pray, Love for those who don't know.
and you mentioned that you got some advice from her that changed your perspective on fertility. Can you tell us what Elizabeth told you and how it applies to what we've been talking about and to our fertility journeys?
Yeah, so I had a couple interactions with Elizabeth Gilbert, actually. I met her when she came to my city about writing my book, which is called Fertile Ground, and it was just released. So go buy it if you're loving this conversation.
But were you talking about the part where I, in the book, when I brought her up in the book? No, I was browsing through your website and it was like a synopsis of one of your podcast episodes. Were you kind of hinted at something that Elizabeth told you that changed your perspective about fertility?
Oh yes, yes, okay, so, sorry, I talk about Liz a lot because I love her. She's one of my mentors, Which story, because I have many with Liz, so Liz visited my city and she's like, uh, anybody have any questions?
And there were like thousands and thousands of people in this auditorium. And so, of course, I think I was wearing leather pads and I was just like sprinting to the front. I probably looked like an absolute crazy person, but I'm like, hey, yo, I am about to write a book.
I am going to ask Liz Gilbert, the OG of writing, what advice she would have for someone who was about to write a book. And she said, was shocked the hell out of me. She said, aren't you curious to know who you're going to become in this book writing process?
And I went, what? Don't you mean aren't I curious to know how this book is going to turn out and what the outcome is going to be of it all? And she was, you know, that's, that's why it kind of turned me on my head.
But her question phrased it into this book writing process, being a journey and who I am going to become. And I think if we can view our fertility journeys that way and say, who do I want to become at the end of this process?
It would help us get so clear on the choices we have, because when you're trying to conceive, you have many different choices on where you can go, what you can do. I mean, we are in a culture of information, right?
Even with parenting, it's like, oh my God, I have so much information. I have so many options and this can feel great, but it can also feel incredibly overwhelming. So if you stay true to who you want to become and the mother you want to become, which is what I talk about a lot in my book, Fertile Ground, it will help you to get really clear on what decisions you want to make.
So for example, this book writing process, there were many moments in which I could have chosen stress and deadlines and needing it to be out and done as fast as possible, even at the compromise of the quality of the book and how I was enjoying it.
But I've learned that on the fertility journey particularly what I learned is that, you know, like I mentioned earlier in the action, how we are feeling in that moment will be the fuel inside of that action and the result will reflect that.
So if we are doing, you know, this crazy fertility diet and we're only eating kale and chicken and avocado, which is so much of what the fertility industry wants you to eat, but you're eating it in this stressed out state and you just are wanting to, you know, barf after every meal because it's so disgusting, or you are in a frenzy trying to find these ingredients, and you are not hanging out with any of your friends or your people because you're so afraid of facing other different types of food.
Who are we at the end of that, right? What kind of a person are we becoming? And I think it helps to know that, yes, there are many different options and different paths that we can take to our babies and to fulfilling lives, but the journey and how you feel matters because that's what's in front of us.
Like we were talking about before this podcast started, it's like, these are the good old days. This, this right now is that time. And so I think it's a double play of not only do I believe the presence and learning how to be present is a gift that you will have for the rest of your life and learning to be safe in this moment without the cultural condition thoughts of go, go, go, do, do, do, do, do.
But I believe that being present influences the future. One of my biggest gurus is Eckhart Tolle, and he says, once you get the inside right, the outside falls into place. And it's really learning how to cultivate presence on the journey to your baby.
And I think my book, Fertile Ground, teaches you exactly how to do that without getting inundated and caught up with that rush to conceive. That is so profound. It made me reflect on my own fertility journey at the very beginning.
I don't think I personally struggled with infertility like other women did, but my husband and I had been trying for about nine months before we got pregnant. So for me, it felt like a long time. I know that's...
probably nowhere near, you know, what other women experience, you know, like you seven years, right. Nine months is nothing compared to seven years. But I remember, I would argue that nine months is still a good chunk of time to, you know, I mean, you know, many people are, if you're at all a perfectionist, like many women are like anything less than the first month, you're worried.
Yeah. I would, I would, you know, if it was a difficult time for you, I wouldn't invalidate that by any means, but go on. Yeah. So I remember like, I want to say like six or seven months in, just to set the scene.
I didn't know it until I had a conversation with one of my friends, but I had been struggling with disordered eating for a long time. And it was right in the middle of COVID. It was like 2020, right in the middle of COVID.
And my new hobby was running. That's how I relieve stress. I also started to figure out that if I ran more and ate less than I got skinnier, right? Like it was this perfect storm. And so I was running a half marathon and I nearly collapsed in awful pain at like two thirds of the way through my half marathon.
No idea why still to this day, don't know why. I have some ideas, but that doesn't matter. And my friend had a conversation with me while we were running and he's like, hey, I just want you to know what I've been noticing about you.
And then he was bold enough to say, it looks like you're struggling with disordered eating. And I can see that you and your husband want a family so bad. And I can tell you right now that your body does not feel safe enough to be pregnant because you are making choices that don't serve your body.
Oh my gosh, like how brave was he to say that, right? Yeah, holy cow. I think about that conversation all the time. Anyway, so he kind of, he put me in my place and then I had a conversation with my husband and my husband was like, okay, well, so what are you gonna do?
And I said, okay, well, I want to be the kind of mom that honors her body and isn't caught up with the trends or the diets or whatever and is true to what is best for me regardless of what other people say.
And I want to show up and be my best so that I can be a good mom for my kids. And that completely transformed how I viewed my fertility journey and then how I was going to be in my motherhood journey.
It all of a sudden became who am I going to be so that I can achieve this end goal, right? My goal was still to have a baby. and to start our family. But it was no longer, okay, we gotta time the sex, we gotta do this and this and this.
It was, what choices am I making to help me become the person that I need to be so that I can be the mom that my kids deserve? And that like flipped the switch in my brain and that made the waiting journey so much easier.
When I was pregnant, it helped me stay focused on, okay, you gotta eat food. Cause I was so tempted to not eat food cause I didn't want to get fat while I was pregnant, right? So it like kept my mindset and check through this whole journey.
And now I have a toddler, I have my second little baby and it's like, okay, what choices am I making every day to become the mom that I want to be? And so I love that you, that was a really long -winded story but I love that that's- I'm so happy you shared it.
I love that story. Thank you. I just, I was thinking about what you were saying and how- You're absolutely right, it really does come down to who do we want to become? Because then it removes the external motivation, it removes the checklists, it removes the imaginary awards that we give ourselves.
I got pregnant in two tries, right? No one gets an award for that, right? So it removes all of that and it just brings it back down to how are we going to feel safe? How are we going to have our own back and still be okay no matter what the end result is?
Yeah, I love that. You know, one way to sum that up is to just be her now, right? Like be her now. Like allow for yourself to somewhat like work backwards in a sense, which is exactly what it is you do when you decide, hey, I get to play with what kind of a mom I want to be now.
And I mean, how exciting is that? You know, one of the ways that if I can relate to that story is one of the things I really faced when I was on my fertility journey was the concept of perfectionism, right?
So feeling like if I was anything less than 100%, I wasn't good enough. And I remember writing a letter to my baby, like a couple of months before getting pregnant, of course, where I was like, hey, I like coffee too much.
I, you know, I like having a glass of wine once a week. And like, I'm sensitive. I have big feelings. I'm not perfect, but I love myself anyways. And I hope you'll love me too. And I hope you'll join me.
And it was like this. That letter was yes, although it was intended intended for the spirit of my baby, but it was also so much more for me in just accepting myself. now and not withholding and waiting until some future event before giving it to myself.
And so I think that's kind of, you know, what to bring it back to your story. It's like, yeah, that's exactly it. It's a matter of letting ourselves have those things now. Like so much of us as women, as we withhold all of these things we desire, why not do it now?
Why not be the mom? Like you want to be a mom who's out doing things, having fun? Go do that now. Right? B, you want to teach your child rest? You want to teach them to take moments of relaxing? Do that now.
Whatever it is that you want to instill in your child. I mean, we, I highly recommend doing that while you're trying to conceive, not just when they get here. Because like you said, and like I said, based on our experience, it starts the minute you decide you have an influence on this journey towards motherhood.
Wow. I, yeah, I couldn't have said it better. You obviously know what you're talking about. And we have, we've talked a lot about mindset and how it's connected to fertility. And we've kind of hinted at this a little bit.
So now I kind of want to shift the conversation a little bit and talk about something that we have kind of hinted at a little bit. And that is, emotional regulation, nervous system regulation, meditation, all of that stuff.
I was going through your podcast and your website. And I noticed that a lot of your podcast episodes and just like your content in general, talk about how nervous system regulation improves fertility outcomes.
Talk to me about how your clients have seen success in their fertility journeys from, you know, implementing nervous system regulation and meditation and things like that. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's like such a, I feel like nervous system regulation is such a hot topic right now.
I think it's actually very simple in the sense of, you know, my favorite way to do it is through meditation. And we might be, you might be saying that meditation is like too simple. It's over said. It's like, Oh my God, another chore.
But I think meditation is just a moment of quiet, a moment of allowing stillness, a moment of allowing ourselves to feel how we feel inside of our bodies and breathing through it. And to me, nervous system regulation that works the best for me is not trying to achieve a particular outcome as much as it is about accepting right now, not necessarily accepting like a life situation of not getting pregnant or,
you know, you don't have to accept your life situation, but acceptance of how you're feeling, where you're at. how your body is feeling, and if you have any physical sensations. So, you know, to tap us into it, an example of that is wherever you are listening to this podcast, if you're driving, if you're walking, if you're getting ready for the day, those are the places I listen to, by the way.
It's just, okay, how is my body feeling right now? Like, do I have any physical sensations? And where are they located? And can I notice it and be mindful of those and drive my breath to those particular areas of my body?
But what would it be like to not judge them, right? What would it be like to not judge what's happening inside of my body right now? And to let it be what it wants to be. And then we move to the mind.
Okay, what's going on in my mind right now? What is active? What is front and center? and then realizing truly that we are the real us, the true us, is the one observing and watching these thoughts. Those thoughts are not facts.
These thoughts are conditions. These thoughts are, ugh, they're never ending. I don't know about you. My mind rarely shuts up. And so meditation is like, ugh, okay. My thoughts are not facts. Just because I have a thought doesn't mean it's true.
And that's when we start to connect with our real true selves. That's where we start to connect with what I talk about in my book as I reference it as our true nature. And that person, that being, that energy is still, it's quiet, but most of all, it's enough.
And so in these moments of stillness and quiet, well, sure, let's call it meditation, but acceptance, just right now, they have a profound effect on taking an activated nervous system, which is generally just the mind and the body in a heightened state based on triggers, which is inevitable to happen in life through conception, pregnancy, labor, motherhood.
It's gonna go on and on and on and on and on. It's not about taking out stress in our lives. It's about learning how do we cope with these moments? How do we cope when plans change? How do we cope through uncertainty?
How do we cope with our fear? And so we could try to change it and manipulate it and make go away as much as we want, but I find the easiest path to that is much more in a state of acceptance and nonjudgment than trying to force something to go away.
Lucky for me, the fertility journey taught me very soon and very clearly that force does not work when it comes to feelings and emotions and thoughts, right? It's like these feelings, these thoughts, these emotions.
emotions, you know, they all, it's like having a bunch of toddlers inside of your mind and your body. And like, they need a place to have a tantrum, they need a spot, they need a seat at the table. And if we don't give so much meaning to each individual thought and emotion, and we can watch it move by like a cloud in the sky, then that is where we will find ourselves most at peace, most safe and most able to just fully live our lives now.
Something that I love about what you just said about nervous system regulation is you didn't get into specifics of, okay, this is how you box breathe. This is how many counts in, this is how many counts you hold, this is how many counts out, this is how you tap, this is how you blah, blah, blah.
I love that it was just a mindset. And that's something that I've realized about nervous system regulation for me. I would love to be the person that could sit down and be still and quiet and just sit with my own mind.
I'm not quite there yet. That's a goal of mine is to get there. But right now the way that I regulate my nervous system is I stress clean. So if my hands are busy and I have like, you know, music or something in my head, I can kind of like zone out.
I'm not super listening to the music and me feeling productive and like I'm cleaning something and I'm taking charge on the outside helps me feel safe on the inside. So for me, one of the ways that I regulate my nervous system is I stress clean.
And then once I've gotten through that, that creates space for me to be still and get to that point. Another thing that I do, I love tanning. I love being in the sun and just laying on a towel in my backyard in my swimsuit with my eyes closed and my country music playing and feeling the sun on my face and my body.
And that is one of the only times that I can access my nothing box. My husband has a nothing box and I was like, that's not fair. I don't have a nothing box. And then I discovered that I find my nothing box when I'm tanning.
And so if I'm ever having a really hard day, I have an El Paso. So it's sunny and warm, like 95% of the year. So I will go outside and just be like, you know what, I'm going to take 20 minutes and I'm going to lay in the sun and I'm going to go find my nothing box.
And that regulates me. And then it gives me space to sit with my feelings, to look at, you know, what is going on with my brain and just kind of reset. And it makes me happy. It's something that makes me happy.
So I love that you didn't necessarily give us anything specific that we have to do. to regulate other than sit with ourselves and give space for us to feel all the things and observe all the things and put names to all the things and then figure out how to move through it and move with it instead of like avoiding it and I think that's I think you're the first person that has talked about nervous system regulation in that way and it's very refreshing because it Well I think that when you apply too much logic to something that I think that we all know you know innately how to regulate I think if you think about the kids like they yes they do need some help they are emotionally all over the place but I feel like they do eventually after they have their outbursts they are really good at Regulating,
they're really good at coming back. They either go outside, they play, they jump, they move, they watch, you know, they sit down, they get cozy. And I think that we all are a lot better at it than we know, and I think you are too.
Like, I think, you know, it's funny, you say you can't be still, but you're like, but I love doing this and I'm still all the time. But I was just going to say, like, it's, I wish we gave ourselves a little bit more credit in knowing and believing that we do have this innate ability to regulate.
And I think that, I mean, I agree, I have these like vagus nerve books on teaching me how to regulate my nervous system. And like, no offense to them, they're for certain types of people. But as soon as I open up, the last thing I felt was regulated, it was way too technical, it was way too logical.
And it brought me totally right back up to my brain. When I think that all I want to connect with to regulate is just allowed to be in my body and do whatever I'm being pulled to do, whether that's stress clean.
You know, for me, like one of the best ways I regulate always and forever is going for a walk, like get me out in nature and I'm good, having a bath. Like, regulation isn't just sitting in stillness, but it's having a place to go where you can just be where you want and feel how you feel.
And if we can become more comfortable in that, like stress cleaning or going outside and having a walk or having a bath or being with the people we love and going out for dinner with them to regulate, like there isn't one which way to regulate.
There are in fact, many different modalities. And yeah, perhaps the one that I mentioned, which was being in stillness is more advanced. But I think that we all have a really big innate ability to do it.
It's being able to trust ourselves more in what we are being called and pulled towards. So I love that you stress clean. I love that. I don't think there's literally nothing wrong with that in my books at all.
If it's what we are using to cope and it works, yes. I think what we're getting at is that stillness is more often a state of mind, right? When I think of stillness, I think of the monks that can sit there literally motionless for hours and not say anything, right?
And to me, I'm like, that is the opposite of regulating. So I think what we're both trying to get at is stillness is a state of mind. And however you can achieve that in a healthy way is what is going to work for you.
And trying to incorporate that regularly with your fertility journey is going to make a difference in... I don't want to just say success, like getting pregnant, right? But also just who you're becoming, what we've talked about, right?
Yeah, and just being like feeling at peace right now, right? Like that, you know, I never, I never ever really want to, people to aim for being happy because happiness, we can never consistently hold on to happiness all the time.
And anytime we are gripping for it and needing it, we are back into that feeling of control. So I believe though that we can feel at peace, it whatever emotion wants to come up, whatever cloud wants to float by in the sky.
So yeah, I think that state of peace, that state of I can feel how I need to feel, there's nothing more regulating to the nervous system. Absolutely. You can probably tell right now from your listeners, they're probably like in their bodies thinking, oh, okay, I'm not wrong.
There's nothing wrong with me. This is just me being a human that came here to experience what it's like to be alive. And that's beautiful. It is beautiful. Did you know that the current standards for prenatal vitamins are only based on the minimum requirements to avoid disease and that pregnant women were not included in the initial research?
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So in addition to regulation and meditation, I want to hear some of your other secrets that are going to help our mamas on their fertility journey. I saw a stat on your website that says that 70 percent of the women that work with you get pregnant within one year.
Holy cow. Oh my gosh. One year after working with me. So we followed up with women a year after working with me and 70 percent of them had gotten pregnant. Okay, so can we know some of the other secrets?
Can you tell us some of the other things that have helped your mamas get pregnant? For sure. So I host a group coaching program. So we meet weekly and we go through kind of what thoughts are going on in their brains.
What's making them what's creating a lot of resistance to letting themselves feel how they feel, what's not allowing them to enjoy their lives now. And so, you know, that really in a way is cognitive behavioral therapy.
And so we're changing their thoughts. I mean, that's just the technical term for it. Although really what it is is it's life coaching and being okay for them to be and feel in their lives right now, right?
Without making themselves wrong. That also helps the social component, right? So sometimes in this journey, the willingness to just be who you are in front of a group of women and open up your heart and be vulnerable, that's a huge part of the healing is not hiding anymore and letting yourself be.
Letting yourself show up, letting yourself be seen and heard regardless of what emotional state you're in. Journaling is ginormous. I don't, you know, it's like, you talked about the biggest and most important relationship we have with ourselves is ourselves, right?
But how do we know what it is we want and need? It's without going pen to paper. I feel like we can have verbal conversations with other people, which is definitely helpful, but there's some type of intimacy that is created when we go pen to paper with ourselves.
And we let all of our perfectionism go and we just say, I'm going to be my messy self right here. I'm going to be super honest. And I'm just going to say something as simple as, what do I need? What do I need right now?
Like what is something that is, I'm feeling, most of the time people don't, they have a need, but they don't let themselves. So great question that will peer into you getting clear. on what it is you need is saying, if no one judged me for this, what would I let myself need?
Oh my gosh. That's amazing. Yeah. That's an amazing question. Right. Especially for women. If nobody judged me, what would I let myself need? And maybe even ask for, right? You could go a step further and say, what would I do?
And that's the next question. Okay, I jumped the gun. The bra is like, who do I need to ask for help in doing that? Wow. Right? And so through these journaling questions, like you really kind of, you know, what's so cool about our coaching calls is that's where we really kind of get to know what resistance do I have for asking for help?
What resistance do I have for asking for support? And can I let myself have this need, even though I might be judged, but knowing that, hey, this is a basic need of mine. Going out with my friends. once in a while is something that I need, right?
I need that. And also knowing that your needs are more so according to your unique nature and not and can move beyond water and shelter and you know, the fundamentals that we had talked about earlier on.
And I think we often as women, we really shame ourselves for our needs. We think, okay, this doesn't exactly isn't exactly in line with a good girl mentality. So I shouldn't ask for it. Meanwhile, it's something that we're really, really yearning for.
And maybe we're even holding back until we get pregnant, until we're a mom. So for example, a lot of women I work with, they're like, I hate my job, but I'm just gonna wait for maternity leave. And so my role as their coach is to help them to feel safe, to ask for what they need now and to not withhold that from them.
So whether that's creating a new environment in their workplace in which they do feel safer and more comfortable, or taking steps to another career in which they feel more fulfilled and more themselves.
One of the basic questions though, while journaling is yeah, getting in women in touch with what it is that they need. So how, how do we go about doing that? Do we just have to sit there and write until it comes to our brain?
Is it helpful to, you know, bounce ideas off of someone else? Do we need to just be still? Like, how do your clients arrive at that place where they have discovered what they need? You know, it's a willingness to be honest with yourself.
It's actually, it's, it's, I say this with all the love in the world when I say that it's not hard. It's just, are you willing to be honest with yourself about what you need? And are you willing to get reacquainted with yourself?
Are you willing to not? no ten list of things that you need, but maybe just one, right? And I think it's grabbing a pen and a sheet of paper and being willing to be in this intimate relationship with yourself.
I mean, like you said, this is the biggest, longest relationship we will ever have. And I see the fertility journey as such an opportunity to get to know yourself, before the tsunami of motherhood comes in.
What a gift to root yourself in your nature, to know what it is that you need to feel safe, to know what it is that you need to thrive. I don't, you know, being now in motherhood, what a gift that was for me to learn how to do that.
How to give myself what I need when I'm feeling off kilter? How do I tend to my anxiety when it's triggered, right? What do I do to come back to myself? And these are all things that I learned on the fertility journey.
And yes, it's a relationship I have to continue. You know, we don't just go on a date once and then get married for life. Like, you know, you got to keep going on dates with yourself. You got to keep spending time with yourself.
You got to keep willing to be honest to yourself about what it is that you need. Vulnerability isn't just with another person. It's like, are you willing to be vulnerable with yourself? Right? There's a, that is also very important.
Yeah, absolutely. And I want to touch on, I want to expand on that a little bit. Fertility journeys come with a lot of really, for lack of better terms, a lot of really big feelings, right? It comes with lots of failure.
Yeah. Lots of anger, lots of struggling to be vulnerable. And then, you know, shame, shame, doubt, fear, isolation, uncertainty, all these big feelings, right? Yeah. I think we kind of touched on this, but when it comes to those feelings, especially women who are talking to themselves saying, what is wrong with me?
Yeah. Why can't I conceive like my sister, like my friend, like this girl that I follow on social media? Why can't IVF work? Why does it keep failing? You know, the moms that are sitting there blaming themselves and telling, like creating this narrative of it's my fault.
Something is wrong with me. Speak to those women. I'd love to. What do we do? There's nothing more I would love to do. I wouldn't speak to them. What do we do? What do we say to help them work through those feelings and come to a place of acceptance and.
and the and, right? I can feel doubt and fear and shame. And how do we get to that and? Yeah. Well, first of all, I just have to say to anyone who is feeling something is wrong with me, like we are trained to feel that way based on our upbringing, based on our culture.
We are trained. If you go to Google and you, you know, you go to the long list of things that you need to do to get pregnant, it's no wonder that you feel like you are to blame. So, and I'm wanting to address that because I'm wanting to create space in the validity of how they feel by not taking responsibility for feeling that way.
And the transition that I take that I took and that many of my clients take and in fact someone in my coaching program today She just turned 43 and she just found out that She just did two IVF egg retrievals and none of them were viable embryos They both came back all of them came back genetically abnormal and I said to her, you know, she said I just want to feel I just want it The only gift I want to give myself today on my birthday is to feel like it's not my fault And it resonated deeply with me because those really Big moments where things don't go according to plan and you find out it didn't work this month I For me and my experience those are the most powerful the most pivotal moments we can have because if in those moments we decide That we are allowed to feel the entire cascade of emotions that come up we're allowed to be angry At the world at god,
whatever it is that you're angry at These are really pivotal moments because It's it's like the choice to not blame yourself and to instead decide I don't know why it didn't happen so What I would suggest for people who were feeling Like something is wrong with me is then Okay, so how do I put this is really fascinating so listen to this It's easy easier for us Even though this is very subconscious.
It is easier for us to default into the certainty of blaming ourselves and the uncertainty of not knowing why it didn't happen. We much prefer certainty than uncertainty. Our brain hates uncertainty.
So we are going to default into the uncertainty that we are to blame. The shift that wants to take place, the shift that I believe is meant to take place, not just to get pregnant, but to have your own back is I am no longer going to decide to default into the mean girl certainty of blaming myself.
And instead, I am going to shift into the truth that I don't know why it didn't happen. And that's OK. Because in this space of uncertainty, in this willingness to be into the nothingness or the void or the uncharted territory of uncertainty, we are not blaming ourselves.
And I think that that is the ultimate goal. The fertility journey is such a huge lesson on uncertainty. And I think that many of us think that as soon as we get pregnant, then it's just like golden from there.
And it'll go away. And it'll go away. But the minute you get pregnant, it's more certainty. And more certainty, and more certainty, and more certainty. And then you have the baby, and it's more certainty, and more certainty, and more certainty.
And so if we are willing to expand and increase our capacity for uncertainty, and the best way I know how to do that on the fertility journey is to stop blaming ourselves and instead decide, I don't need to know, which I have a whole chapter on this in my book, Embracing Uncertainty.
Because it's such a powerful, important, pivotal part of the fertility journey. Then we don't know this, but we will feel so much safer to shift into that next phase, which is ultimately conception, and pregnancy, and labor, and motherhood.
Motherhood in general is all, it's like vulnerability, uncertainty, emotional regulation, like nervous system regulation, letting ourselves feel how we feel, self -compassion, like everything that we're talking about on this podcast will be a pivotal point, and a pivotal moment for you to apply into motherhood.
lessons we get to learn. We get to learn on the fertility journey we will ultimately take with us into motherhood. So to sum it up, how do we stop blaming ourselves by willing to be uncertain and not knowing why it didn't work?
And that might be really uncomfortable for some people, but at least we're not blaming ourselves. And sometimes I believe that's the biggest shift that actually needs to occur. Not just to get pregnant because I do believe that this increases fertility when we've stopped blaming ourselves and we've stopped shaming ourselves, but again to find that peace now.
Oh my goodness that was so powerful. I love how you brought up that it's not that the uncertainty... is going to go away because you're going to feel uncertain when you're pregnant, right? Am I going to have a miscarriage?
Is my baby going to be born with something? Am I going to go into labor early? Am I going to go into labor late? Am I going to be induced? Am I going to have a C -section? Then you get into motherhood and you're like, why is my baby crying all the time?
Why, why, why, right? There's so much uncertainty that comes with every phase. So instead of trying to squash the uncertainty by either blaming ourselves or trying to find some way to make things more certain, leaning into that and saying, I don't know and that's okay is going to be so transformative.
It reminds me of something that Jenna Kutcher says. She is also a fellow author and she's a marketing guru, but something that she says about grief because she struggled with fertility as well, is she said, the purpose of grief is not to get past it, it's to move through it and carry it with you for the rest of your life.
Grief never goes away. You just learn how to better tolerate the presence of grief and it becomes less obvious as you move through life and that's always stuck with me for anything that I struggle with and I think that really applies to what you mentioned is it's not to move past uncertainty or to squash it or leave it behind.
It's to learn how to sit with it and bring it with you and find a way to be more comfortable with it as you continue on in your journey, no matter how long that journey is. Yeah, like I think, you know, I talk about it in the book, but it's like we're not meant to know the answers.
Like how could we possibly know these answers and And so when we realize that we don't have to, I don't know about you, but it's just like, okay, if I don't have to like find the answer right now, then I can be in my life and I can go do my thing and I can hang out with my people, then I can have great conversations, great food, enjoy my life, be in this life.
And that, I think that's what we're wanting in conception and in getting pregnant is just like, okay, finally, I can go back to living my life and it's like, no, we can do that right now. You don't need all the answers and you can do that right now.
It's a beautiful place to be. It is. Well, before we close, I want to ask you just a couple of questions about your book, Pertel Ground. I am so excited to read it. I just, just based on my conversation today, I'm like, I need to like have it on my bookshelf now.
You need to read it. It's such a pretty book, too. It's really visually beautiful. I mean, the cover is beautiful. I know. So if you're talking about how the book is beautiful, I'm so excited. Actually, interestingly enough, the lady who designed it, she's also designed books for Stephen King, which you would never know because the book is so feminine.
It's so beautiful. That's awesome. Yeah, it's funny. Well, you talk about the whole goal of Fertile Ground, your book, your brand, your business, is a, quote, positive result with or without a pregnancy test.
Oh, that makes me so happy when you say that out loud. Oh, my gosh. Kate, talk to me about what this means to you and your clients. Yeah. I think that when we're going through fertility treatment or we're doing this really restrictive diet and we're changing and upholding our whole life to get pregnant and if all we focus on is the baby and it doesn't happen, then that perpetuates the self -blame.
That perpetuates the shame. That keeps that cycle of I failed, I messed up. And it's either like win or loss. And in the approach I teach inside of Fertile Ground, I love that it's a win -win either way because you decide and are learning how to grow in so many different facets of your life and stretching yourself into all these different versions of yourself and learning how to take your hand off the hold button,
that the relief actually sets in before getting pregnant. And what I love about... the work that I do is that all the graduates of my program is like their success whether or not they get pregnant because they're learning how to live their lives again.
They're learning how to have their own backs. They're learning how to feel safe. They're learning how to take up space. And that's a win. That is a huge win. And yeah, sometimes there's a baby that comes with that and sometimes there's not.
And sometimes it's just not yet. And so if we know that we are embarking on a journey that we are going to win at either way because it's not just about the baby, then like we are in such a more surrendered state, right?
We are so much more open to all these incredible things unfolding because on my fertility journey, like I couldn't have imagined. how great my life could have got when I was trying to conceive. Like, I got way more than just a baby out of this fertility journey because of how it stretched every part of me that didn't want to be stretched into uncertainty, into surrender, into trust, into learning how to,
like, actually be in my body and process my emotions instead of just being run by the thoughts of my head. So, I don't know. If you know that you're going to be a success whether or not you get pregnant, already you're starting to kind of let go of needing control and leaning way more into the journey as opposed to just the outcome.
Oh my gosh, I don't even want to comment. That was just... That was so perfect, mamas. If you are truly listening to what Spencer is saying, I hope you are really internalizing because it really is such a different conversation than what we are hearing on social media and what we are hearing from our doctors and what we are hearing from our friends and family who mean well but probably are pouring salt in the wound sometimes.
They have no idea what they're talking about most of the time. You know, and even if there's a fellow mom that struggles with infertility, right, it just never quite makes you feel better, right? You're like, I don't want to be part of this club.
I don't want to know that I'm right there with you. I don't even want to be here in the first place, like struggling with infertility or, you know, whatever your fertility journey looks like. So, I love that you phrased it as it's a win -win no matter what.
It truly is. If you let it be more about just the baby than just the baby. Yeah, and if we can expand that like possibility as to like all the things we conceive, we can conceive that's so exciting. So exciting.
Oh my gosh, you have such a way with words. All the things we can conceive. Yeah, can we can we grow our love and our acceptance and our presence and our willingness to take our space? Oh my gosh, you have such a way with words.
That's why I wrote a book. Okay, so oh my gosh. Okay, so your book, Fertile Ground. You've got a group coaching program. You've got a podcast. We have done this interview on the podcast. I feel like I have learned so much from you.
What are the things that we are gonna learn inside your book that we can't find anywhere else? I think that what the book does is it takes you through the actual process. So it's an introduction and then from chapter one to chapter nine, there are nine chapters because there are nine months in a pregnancy and that only makes sense.
But it's like a there's a method to my madness in the chapters. So Each chapter is designed to take you deeper into safety, deeper into relief. Like I wouldn't open up the book and start at chapter eight.
You would miss so much of the natural flow and transition that you find inside of this book. So when you say, what do I find in the book that I'm not gonna find anywhere else? It's like the beautiful journey it takes you on from start to finish.
And that's what I talk about in the introduction. I'm like, it is this. You are embarking on a new journey. Come sit down, have a seat, grab a warm beverage. The old journey is ending and a new one is beginning.
And it starts like the minute you open up the book. And it is the book in it of itself is a journey and it teaches you how to be on one and how to build safety and how to build trust and how to be in your life.
Okay, so I need to buy it. Where am I gonna buy it? Where do we buy it? Amazon, Amazon Search Fertile Ground on Amazon. It's already a bestseller, which I'm so excited about. Thank you. That's amazing.
Yeah, so yeah, just Amazon Search Fertile Ground and enjoy every piece of this. I actually went to Hawaii and I wrote half a book in a week with a writing coach. So it's just infused with so much magic and fertile energy from the island of Kona.
I love it. Okay, mamas, I will save you a step. I will just link it in the show notes. Perfect. All we have to do is go to the show notes and you will go straight to Spencer's book. Okay, besides your book, where can we connect with you?
Where can we learn from you? Where can we work with you? Be a part of your world. Yeah, so free is podcast, Instagram. I'm on at Spencer Broussard, S -P -E -N -S -E -R, B -E -N -S. A -R -A -S -S -A -R -D, then by the book.
And then also my program is called Fertility My Body Mastery. So it's a six month group coaching program. It is designed to get you uncomfortable out of your safe little spot and into the vulnerability and what is required, I believe, to make this next transition into conception and then motherhood.
So yeah, you can find that on my website at www .spendsuperstar .com. Beautiful. Well, before we close, I have one last question. I think I forgot to put it. I did, okay, so this is gonna be spontaneous.
I forgot to put it in our outline, but this is the question that I ask all my guests and it doesn't have to relate to our conversation today. Love it. What is a non -negotiable to you to living a well -nourished life?
A bath. I love you. We are friends now. Literally, I would be a crazy person without my baths. Thankfully, I have the best husband in the world and he bathes the boys while I take a bath. It's everything to me.
Oh my gosh. I love you. Do you take a bath to bathe, to get clean? Or do you just take a bath to relax? Talk about regulating. I just go in and sometimes I read, sometimes I scroll, sometimes I sit in meditation.
Whatever I need, I give myself and it's just I come out and it's like I've taken a drug. I'm like so chill. You could have given me a Xanax. Is that an anxiety? I don't know. But that's how much of an impact it has on my entire system.
It is the most potent medicine for me. So yeah, it's just the best thing ever. Oh my gosh. I love it. Now, I might just have to send you like some Epsom salts and all the good things in the mail so that you can just have your bath and make it the best bath ever.
That is incredible. Spencer, I have loved talking to you today and I'm so excited that our conversation was the first conversation on the podcast about fertility. You've been absolutely amazing. I can't wait for mamas to connect more with you.
Thank you so much for having me Brooke. You have such a a loving like energy and spirit. It's just I'm so glad you're doing this for moms and future moms and I love hanging out with you and I'm so glad that you are here to contribute to that journey.
So thank you so much mamas. Please please give Spencer a follow. Go buy her book. If you like loved today's episode, please go buy her book and with that we will see you in the next episode. And that's the end of another episode.
I hope you loved today's topic as much as I did. You can find all of today's show notes and details at thewellnourishedmama .com slash podcast, as well as all of my recipes and resources on the blog.
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