Through her lens, is a collection of life experiences from the perspective of a Traditional Chinese medicine masters practitioner, trained yogi and truster of nature

“I mentioned previously that if you arrive in the clinic hoping for a pregnancy next cycle, whilst currently living in the same suboptimal ebb and flow you have lived over the past 6-12 ‘not yet pregnant’ months you are mistaken. However, one thing I see to be true, once you and your partner commit to the right small changes, great results are quite quickly attained.”

I never noticed it before, but now I do see it. I am a bit of a try-hard or hard-tryer as I like to put it. Just ask anyone who has born witness to my singing. You see, I know I’m not the best sounding singer (contrary to what my mum used to have me believe) but I will gladly belt out a song usually with my own lyrics added for extra delight. I am not afraid of how it sounds, I am livened by how it feels. This is generally how I live and practice, unafraid by the sound livened by the feels, and I’m not mad about it.

So here is a real life lived story -

Here I was midway through my masters just about to move back to Australia after living overseas for 7 years. My partner and I were ready for the baby that we had been gently preparing for over the past 4-ish years. In my head we’d fall pregnant, I’d restart my business in Australia and he’d finish off his sporting career in Switzerland. 9 months later he’d come back, out would pop our baby and I’d finish off my thesis whilst on maternity leave.

If reading that didn’t make you wince, you may be where I was. This amount of pressure is what I now like to call insanity.

This luckily was not achieved.

Just the thought of writing a thesis whilst on maternity leave actually leaves me feeling physically ill, let alone a whole pregnancy without a partner. I do know a few women who have done this and kudos to her, she is powerful and deserves much more reverence.

So I had been trying hard, following my daily practices like my religion. Knowing everything about my cycle, seeing, feeling and sensing exactly when to have sex to make the baby and being very impatient as one cycle had now passed and my plan was not going to plan. I pondered why is it not happening right now? I had done all the preparation, we were ready (or so I thought).

Now, this is where everyone has different beliefs, for me, I trust in divine timing and what my partner believes because everything and I mean everything he wholeheartedly believes in, comes to fruition. So when he told me, “you are too stressed, there is too much going on for you with work, study, and moving, when you let go it will happen”.
I know that doesn’t sound like too much of a miracle statement, I mean I know it’s not, because I tell it to nearly every one of my baby-making patients. But, it holds a potent message many of us in the baby making mix find so hard to do, because when your baby clock rings it is ridiculously hard to stop the sound. No matter how many Gayatri mantra’s, downward dogs, beach walks, fresh lemon teas, acupuncture sessions or burnt incense. The baby clocks ring tone is loud. Even for a practitioner who lives and breathes the knowledge of the destructive power of stress, anxiety, worry, trauma, etc. I am not immune.

I needed to do my work.

For me, that was and often is to land, let go and trust.

By this stage my partner had left to finish his career and I was in Australia creating mine. I had re-created a business I had run in Sweden, again in Sydney, and although it gave me great joy and fulfilled me quite substantially the constant rummaging noise in my head was overwhelming. So I adjusted by reducing my own work to work out of Peakhurst Chinese medicine. This calmed things a lot, but I needed further adjustment, I managed to take another step back and began working at another clinic. Both of these jobs gave me much needed space to let go of the ins and outs of running a business and focus on being a practitioner.

I was also trying hard to start and finish my final Master’s thesis. This for me was a journey into the abyss and back. I only state this from my own personal experience but working and studying at the same time is hard. Work is difficult as it is busy, as a practitioner we work hard to fully engage whilst in the treatment room with each individual, to remember where you were last session, identify any changes and scope out how to proceed. It is a constant juggle as we float from room to room, however one that has become ingrained and feels sturdy and familiar. Studying however, keeps your mind in constant fluctuation. Learning, adapting, and changing minute by minute.

SIDE NOTE - For anyone considering doing their masters I highly recommend the challenge. There are generally two different types of masters one is based upon course work, similar to an undergraduate degree but with more rigour and the other is based upon course work plus a final dissertation or small research project. I would recommend anyone to do the former over the latter. I chose the latter and whilst it enriched my thinking and gave me new tools of understanding such as; how to set up and run a research project; how to read research papers and decipher what they actually found not just what they are telling you; the basic aspects of ensuring you are researching something ethical, where by the benefits out way the risks; to understand statistics and run qi square tests to statistically evaluate answers; to write tens of thousands of words and then form meaning from it all in a few sentences. It was tough.

Writing a thesis in eight months start to finish is difficult and exhausting, nonetheless incredible to do. To immerse yourself in a topic you feel incredibly passionate about, and at the end of it, to identify aspects that could potentially support women in their postpartum journey, was enriching for me.

And we’re back -

So as my partner returned to Australia and we worked on restarting our life as we had done in numerous cities many times before. I made more changes, I had already adjusted the way I worked, I increased the way I practiced my meditation after I saw its potency in more practice, I committed to physical exercise and ate well, never skipping meals because I was busy. I also needed to let go of aspects of my surroundings that weren’t serving me. For example changing certain relationships with people, places and old patterned thoughts. However, it was not until I landed and let go that it would all fall in to place.

Here is the kicker. In order to calm everything down to land and let go and allow space for a baby. I was trying to enforce a regime of rigorous focus, stick to strict deadlines, whilst also floating around in thousands of thoughts that was writing a thesis. The paradox of it all is comical at best and insanity at worst. This sort of paradox is common among women and their partners who arrive in the treatment room. As I have mentioned I was not immune nor was I accepting of the contradictory conundrum during this period of time. I had created small changes that would exponentially support me when I did finally master the last piece to my puzzle. This piece is different for everyone in every aspect of whatever it is you aim to achieve. I earnestly believe that the continual changes and adjustments built strong supports and the final puzzle piece, “to really land and let go” the key. Without the supports the key wouldn’t work, and without the key the supports would continue to support but may not give the desired outcome.

After numerous cycles to no avail “It will happen when you let go” his words started to ring louder than the baby clock alarm. Interestingly just as my partner had promised once the work was done. Baby did come.