People are often surprised that when I begin to discuss the importance of healing relationships in fertility, I usually speak about relationships other than a person’s marriage or primary romantic partnership. The three fundamental relationships that I address, in order of importance, are:
Becoming comfortable with all facets of intimacy and vulnerability (not just our relationship with our primary partner) is a fundamental building block of letting go of the need to control, which is so important in the fertility process. Intimacy is a reflection of our ability to connect to a deep internal space; from this space, we can recognize what feels familiar in the world—and once we identify it, we can begin to draw it in through the most powerful universal law: love.
Our very first relationship is to the infinite, and this relationship plays a major role in fertility. From our primary relationship with ourself, we build our universe, which includes the people, place, and time we are born into. The worldly relationships that have a major impact on our desire to have a child reflect something about our own spiritual path. As you decide to enter into the new relationship of parenthood, remember that what you and your future children have in common is that you are both born from spirit and will both return to spirit. For many people, the concept of an eternal soul, or a soul that can reincarnate, is uncomfortable because it is not tangible or confirmed by science. An important step in working with energy, especially the energy of helping draw in your child’s spirit, is taking the risk in believing that an eternal soul does, indeed, exist. As with all that I suggest in my teachings of spiritual fertility, I am not asking you to be a true believer. It is not necessary for you to unquestioningly follow any of what I suggest. Indeed, the point of spiritual fertility practices is to ultimately strengthen your connection to intuition to such an extent that you only accept advice when it resonates as true with your mind, heart, and spirit. For some of you who already have a spiritual practice that acknowledges the before- and afterlife, the notion that your child’s spirit exists is not a particularly difficult one to digest. But for others, including many I have worked with over the years, this concept is hard.
Perhaps you can observe this disconnect in your own life. Maybe in your partnership, you have a spiritual way of approaching the world while your partner is more rational or cynical—or vice versa. We are often karmically attracted to people who can trigger our unresolved issues. As the poet Rumi writes, “Things are revealed by their opposite.”
There is no better opportunity to resolve our issues, especially about relationships, than in the decision to consciously create. Many of our relationships that feel antagonistic or that challenge us to process unacknowledged trauma can benefit from the reminder that our most important and fundamental relationship is the one we have to the Divine. Acknowledging this primary connection is a diplomatic gesture to the infinite, a simple action that demonstrates your readiness to listen and evolve. We can approach all conversations and difficulties we have with ourselves, our partners, and the spirits of our future children in the same way. Indeed, demonstrating respect and compassionate listening can heavily influence the outcome of every conversation we have.
Our first relationship as individual human beings existed before we were born. This bond encompassed the space, time, and territory of all that which came before our first breath. All of your relationships with others begin with your relationship to the Divine. This primary relationship sets the stage for all other subsequent relationships. It’s easy to get more complicated than this, critiquing and blaming the other people in our lives—even those with whom you share the greatest intimacy—for all the possible reasons that you have not found happiness, are not getting pregnant, or why so many things in the world can go wrong.
The greatest ally you have in life is your own spirit and its relationship to the universe, but it’s easy to lose sight of this in the midst of fertility issues. For many of my clients, the first time they truly experience not getting what they want, when they want it, is when they don’t become pregnant within a certain period of time. It’s hard to feel the call to motherhood—and to already have so many important components of building a family established (a stable partner, economic security, comfortable home, good career, and so on)—and to not have it happen.
Most people’s first reaction to not getting pregnant is anger. This is usually expressed against their partner and the unfairness of other people easily conceiving, even though they are seemingly not as prepared to be parents. Anger can generate change, and in this respect I think it is a powerful force in working within fertility.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the underlying energetics of the male/female relationship when it comes to anger around sexuality and fertility. The patriarchal structure that has dominated Western culture has not left much room for feminine expression, and much of the feminist response to past oppression has been fueled by anger, which is a powerful changemaker. However, the slippery slope of blaming and projecting the history of inequality between men and women onto your present fertility leads to a dead end. I never counsel my clients to mitigate their anger toward their partners, their boss, or global politics. But I do ask them to step back and instead catalyze their anger as a healing force in developing a new intimacy with their own spirit.
Anger, while an undeniable driver of change, can also stagger your personal development and hinder intimacy with your partner, family, and the world. I myself have felt the impacts of the anger that originated in the experiences I had growing up as a preacher’s kid in a religion that didn’t see women as equal. I understood the teachings of the Bible to be about equality, fairness, and spiritual liberation. The hypocrisy of people using these core values for their own gain threw me into rebellion and spiritual crisis.
When I became an adult, many unresolved feelings of my childhood often played out in my relationships, particularly anger. Through deep analysis, I discovered that the epicenter of my anger was not my partner or my parents, but my relationship with the Divine. The initial mystical experiences I’d had, of feeling spirit in all things, was ripped out from under me by people, politics, school, and the sadness of the world. Anger, while my greatest defense against all of this, was merely a cover for the sadness and distrust I felt and the underlying belief that I was actually not supported by the universe.
I was ultimately angry at God.
Years later, when I was in the third row of a Tori Amos concert in New York City, she said something between songs that touched me deeply. The album for which she was touring contained songs about environmental devastation and our lack of stewardship of the Earth, but as she spoke, she described how she turned her anger into action through song—and how she was inspired to do this for her daughter: “I had to create another story, another potential path for the future, one of hope.”
This resonates for me and many of my clients. Our children follow the generalized paths that we carve, and while anger has been valuable and can dynamically enact change, it is what we decide to do with this anger that determines our path.
Anger tends to be the first emotion that percolates to the surface in relationships when we are not getting our essential needs meet. The consciousness that you develop with yourself creates a strong foundation for your conception and pregnancy, and also influences the development and consciousness of your child.
People speak of self-care frequently these days, but I see self-care as a timeless personal practice for carving out the space and solitude necessary for listening to your spirit. It creates the internal dialogue to dream up something better for your life and for the Earth. Without this internal dialogue and the space to listen, intimacy with others is close to impossible. None of this can be done if your reservoir is running low or is dangerously depleted. How can you give freely of love and compassion if you have not first experienced it in your own heart? The practice of self-care is about creating a consistent monitoring system. The tools that you discover become a method for calibrating your energetic scales. Observing when the scales tip from one side to another often gives you the insight to determine what is out of alignment in your life.
Just because you practice consistent self-care, and see imbalance as it happens, doesn’t necessarily mean you will prevent depletion. As I wrote this section, I noticed that I let my phone run out of energy, although I was expecting an important call. My normal routines and practices I need to keep me anchored sometimes get thrown out the window, especially when I am busy. It is important to acknowledge that free will is always at play. Even when we choose not to care for ourselves, or decide to place others’ needs before our own, we are always demonstrating this free will.
This is a tool that I developed for myself after the birth of my daughter. I was overwhelmed with responsibility and unable to prioritize my own care. I needed a practice that was simple and easy to remember. I consulted a tarot deck and pulled the High Priestess card. It reminded me that ancient temples and churches followed a clear and methodical orientation. They were often built to model the heavens and arranged in accord with the directions. These foundations created the space for higher-level connection to self and the spirit.
Sacred spaces are meant to inspire a life that mirrors humanity as a reflection of the holy. I was yearning for inspiration and clarity as to how to remain balanced and found that it was as simple as cleaning my house.
Determine the pillars of what you absolutely need in order to support the structure of your spirit. I suggest finding at least four that you can practice daily. To help determine what your pillars are, think back to the times of your life when you were happiest and most in alignment with your spirit. Remember the things you were doing, the food you were eating, the places where and people with whom you were spending time. Identify your pillars and write them down. Do not compromise on integrating these pillars into your life. I have found that I can go a few days without one or two, but after that, I begin to see cracks in my foundation and my temple feels compromised.
I have a personal practice I call Finding Your Pillars, that is an extremely helpful form of self-care. I developed it in the first year of my daughter’s life, when I found myself prioritizing everyone in my life before myself. Practicing essential love and conscious care for yourself before you get pregnant will create a foundation to carry this practice through pregnancy and parenthood.
“What is your relationship like with your mother?” is a question I ask my patients frequently, and the range and complexity of answers is very telling. We follow the energetics of our parents, and the example they set heavily influences our belief systems around what is possible for our own lives. But even more specifically, the transition in consciousness that occurs when you become a parent opens up deep memories from your earliest time on the planet and often triggers new ways of relating to your parents.
Many people find themselves capable of reaching a new level of compassion for their parents once they become parents themselves. The difficulty of navigating parenthood, combined with the reality of living in a world that does not support women and families, is a painful reality that can only truly be understood once experienced. Our greatest capacity for compassion is often rooted in shared life events. This is one reason that strong, long-lasting bonds develop with the tribe that supports you through infertility, pregnancy, and the raising of young children.
While some experience this compassion, for others entering into parenthood is an entirely different experience, one of clearer boundaries and, sometimes, the dissolution of relationships. Often, unresolved issues within our relationships only come to light when we look deeply into the root of our symptoms. If we don’t heal these deeper injuries, we often unconsciously repeat the trauma, typically in the form of allowing relationships into our lives that keep us frozen and unable to evolve.
Brigitte called me one late summer day, looking for help. She had already been trying to get pregnant for six months but broke into tears halfway through the conversation, insisting that something felt off. She, like many others, was hesitant because she and her husband were uncertain about the extent to which they were prepared to use Western reproductive medicine, especially lab work.
I sensed from the start that Brigitte had unresolved trauma from a previous terminated pregnancy. Our first call together confirmed that she had experienced a termination at a young age, and that she had been susceptible to an abusive spiritual community—in particular, an older man who took advantage of her and impregnated her. Brigitte’s spirit was fierce as a result of surviving abuse. She was the type of friend and partner who would fight to the death for you. But when it came to fighting for her own needs, both emotionally and physically, she was still extremely critical of her own perceived weaknesses.
Through the tools explored in Chapters 2 and 3, we worked to clear the leftover energetic connections from her early 20s. Just as we turned this corner, a huge wave of blocked and unresolved emotion flooded Brigitte’s energetic field. It became clear in my intuitive vision that the spirit of her daughter, which I had felt connected to since our very first call, was ready to be born but did not feel welcomed. So I opened our next session by asking, “Why do you not want to have a girl?”
Brigitte was quiet for a bit but then said, “I had a dream a few days ago about my daughter, and I’m terrified because I know that she wants to be my child.”
“What is terrifying about it?” I inquired.
“I was a terrible daughter,” she explained, “and my mom told me all throughout my childhood that she hoped that I would have a daughter who was just as bad as I was so that I would suffer like she did.”
“Aha,” I responded. “This is it, Brigitte, the last piece of the puzzle.”
For Brigitte, like many others, the hurt of a difficult childhood in a broken home—as well as the weight of being energetically sensitive without being given the tools, unconditional love, and encouragement necessary to learn how to channel and express this sensitivity—resulted in childhood behavior “problems.” Her mother was not a bad mother, but was overworked, under-supported, and unable to supply Brigitte with the tools she needed. So she did what many parents do: lash out in anger and frustration.
Although Brigitte understood on some level that her mother’s attitude was not truly about her, she had still taken her words to heart. A powerful practice known as re-parenting ultimately led to a breakthrough moment for Brigitte. Through this exercise she became capable of stepping into the moments of her childhood through the eyes of her higher self, thus rewriting the narrative that her mother had imprinted on her. Together we reenacted the scenes from her childhood, changing the conversation to be supportive and loving instead of angry and judgmental. By the end, while she felt a new level of compassion for her mother, Brigitte also understood the ways in which her mother had failed to be a good parent for her when she needed it most. She was able to heal this lack of unconditional love by remembering that even at that time in her life, she was being held, loved, and watched over by God.
Re-parenting allows us to revisit scenes from our childhood and unpack the moments when our parents failed us. Allowing your present-day self to re-parent your inner child with love, respect, and patience heals deep wounds of shame and negative beliefs about yourself. It is an integral step to healing, especially when you become a parent. During her next cycle, Brigitte conceived a baby girl. She also inadvertently healed her relationship with her mother and was able to allow her back into her life with clear communication and newly set boundaries.
Picture yourself as a child. Now imagine your present self as the parent of this younger self. Make an inventory of what has changed between your younger self and your older self. Visualize the moments when you were most hurt by the actions of your parents. How did they pass down judgment and anger instead of the love and patience that you needed? Can you determine the beliefs about yourself that you developed around that time? Was there a moment in childhood where things shifted for you significantly? For example, perhaps a move, change of school, or conflict in your family caused you to act out.
The practice of re-parenting enables you to return to this moment and allow a greater force to step in where your parents failed to be your advocate. Observe how your inner child feels when you experience unconditional love and support. When you are feeling self-critical and find yourself in a loop of negative beliefs, step in to be an advocate for yourself. Show yourself the unconditional love that you show others.
Most learned strategies designed to power through difficulty or perform better to achieve a goal simply do not work when it comes to infertility. Infertility is often the first experience people have of their learned strategies for success simply not working. This is one reason infertility can offer a valuable opportunity for a couple to closely examine their relationship priorities and overall quality of life.
We tend to idealize romantic relationships, and we project a lot of societally imposed expectations onto them. Western culture is centered around setting and reaching goals—and our entire economy supports this structure. We are taught the correct order of events should take place in life, beginning with graduating from school, finding a career and a partner, getting married, and then starting a family. If this structure breaks down, it can create a crisis. A healing opportunity that is rooted in suffering can change the direction of your life.
In Hinduism, the goddess Kali is known as the deity of destruction and death. It is Kali’s job to keep you on your spiritual path through often-painful life events, such as the loss of a job, illness, and infertility. The deep lessons we learn when faced with these life challenges, and the opportunity we are given to deepen our relationship with ourself and our partner, are some of Kali’s gifts. That is not to say that these experiences will magically stop sucking, or even that they will become easier with perspective. During such times, we will be prompted to dig deep—but through them, we will also grow and strengthen the most.
Sometimes, infertility is the symptom of a strained intimate relationship; other times, infertility is what creates the strain. A common effect of infertility is a sexless marriage or partnership. People often refer back to times before they began trying to become pregnant as “better” and “more fulfilling,” emotionally and sexually. The pain that both members of a couple experience when pregnancy is not occurring can reinforce negative patterns within the relationship. One person can easily project their sadness and frustration onto the other, instead of sharing their internal emotional state.
Our sex life can offer us a lot of information about how we are relating to our partner, and can give us a tally of how much focused, undistracted time we are sharing with our loved one. Unfortunately, the ideal of having children can be treated as just another goal to obtain and tick off the list; this creates a split in our understanding that having children is related to being intimate with your partner. It is important to keep sex and intimacy fun and lighthearted, especially as people are trying to conceive. Partnership and marriage need to be prioritized above pregnancy, and love should always be emphasized as a powerful healing force. After all, the spirits of our children looking down upon us are attracted to loving partnerships and clear desire between two people.
However, for many, sex is layered with discomfort, trauma, broken trust, and unconscious issues in our intimate relationship. Mindy was referred by a colleague and was committed to getting to the bottom of why she was not getting pregnant. She took a long train ride into New York City to meet with me in person weekly for many months and never missed or rescheduled a session. Mindy was committed to healing on every level: physical, mental, and spiritual. On a physical level, her cycles were regular, and she had clear bifurcated follicular and luteal phases and positive ovulation tests. She had been married for five years and described her marriage as good; however, she and her spouse seemed to be in different places with respect to starting a family.
During the course of our work, I sensed a strong blockage in her energetic field that seemed to stem from her husband. She shared with me that he was very resistant to having a semen analysis and insisted that he was okay. After a period of working to improve her connection to her intuition, she decided to ask him again to get lab work done. At this time, he admitted that he had no interest in having children and that he was, in fact, having an affair and wanted a divorce. This was of course devastating for my client, but it confirmed what her intuition had been telling her all along.
They divorced quickly, and she moved forward with her life, unsure as to how and when she would have children. About a year later, she called me to say that she was five months pregnant and in love with an old friend. She described the work that we did together as imperative for the next step of her life and expressed gratitude for finding the path to connect to her spirit. She now has three children.
A resistant partner is not necessarily the wrong partner. The work of parenthood requires all hands to be on deck. Sometimes, one person is ready to have a family before the other, and this can cause discord, insecurity, and a lack of trust. Finding a way to communicate during this period is essential. I have witnessed that if couples speak about their hesitation and fears around parenthood prior to getting pregnant, this produces far better and faster outcomes once the timing is correct. The same applies to maintaining our connection and intimacy with a partner and prioritizing this bond when we are trying to conceive, be it through natural conception, assisted reproductive medicine, or the use of surrogacy.
The tendency to over-rationalize and explain through “science” how conception takes place de-emphasizes the power of love and romance. The spirit of your child knows how to identify and navigate a path to you via the emotion of love. Remember that to the spirit world, the laws and rules of humankind mean very little. We often over-complicate things with interpretation instead of allowing the energy to speak for itself.
Close your eyes for a moment and say these two statements aloud. First: “We have so much love between us that we have extra to share, and we want to share this love with you.” Next say, “We really want you and are going to do everything the doctor and science say we need to do to conceive you.” Which one feels more attractive, positive, and inclusive?
You can never go wrong with romance when it comes to connecting to your child’s spirit. They love it and far prefer it to Excel spreadsheets, apps, and calendar alarms! Trust that the person you are with has been put into your life for the most extraordinary of purposes, which might be beyond your understanding—and allow this relationship to be a touchstone built on trust and love, regardless if you choose to have children or not.
Later in the book, we will dive into spirit contracts and how and why children’s spirits are tied to specific parents. I want to state very clearly here that if your intuition is repeating over and over again that the reason you are not getting pregnant is that you are not meant to have a child with the particular partner you are with, then you need to listen to this voice. We live in a time of possibility and potential, and there are more ways than ever to pursue pregnancy. Whatever you might think, you do not have to stay with a partner who doesn’t love you or who injures your spirit just because you are being loudly called to have a baby.
Each of our communities provides a powerful source of herd immunity, encouragement, and support. These communities and relationships are all examples of what we have individually manifested and chosen. Each represents how well we are communicating our emotional, physical, and spiritual needs.
The experience of becoming a parent is transformational. It changes you and makes you question things you never did before . . . and this can create a strain in relationships where you are expected to remain the same. Because of this, relationships, especially the oldest and most relied on, are often tested.
I have found that becoming a mother pushed me to speak up and ask for what I needed, not just from my partner and family, but from the universe itself. After our daughter, Anna Libertine, was born, a friend asked me what I thought had changed the most.
“I can’t explain it,” I said, “but her birth educated my bones.”
What I realize now is that the experience of pregnancy and birth awakened in me the knowledge of the most fundamental and foundational connections each human being has to every other human being and the Earth. When we remember that we are all created equal and that our relationships are here to help us celebrate and connect with each other, nothing is impossible. All of this begins with the acknowledgment that you and your connection to spirit are of utmost importance. Any partner, doctor, or family member who makes you feel like you are not important is simply someone to be removed from the phone book of your life. Asking for what you need, including support, is essential to your fertility. You are bringing to Earth more than just your own child; you are bringing in a fellow sister and brother to us all.
We have a choice in the types of relationships we allow in our lives. Sometimes fertility can provide us with an opportunity to shift the way we relate and with whom we choose to collaborate and create. Trusting your intuition is essential when evaluating the energies of others whom you allow into the sacred space of conception and pregnancy. This can be an energetically vulnerable time, and you might find that some of your relationships feel more unsupportive and draining than they did before. Your energy level is your guide. Allow space to be created for those who can show you unconditional love, and try to identify the relationships that are toxic and possibly working against you. You might not have to completely end those relationships; just identifying them will allow you to choose to what extent you want them in your life and the life of your child.
At times when I’m feeling exhausted and I’ve put my self-care on the back burner for too long, I’ll remember the voice of my daughter saying to me, “Even if we are not together, we are always together.”
I instantly know that she is correct—and I feel supported and loved. The types of relationships that we nurture for ourselves set the standard for the types of relationships our children nourish and facilitate in their lives. Simply remember that you have the power to manifest what you need, especially with respect to the relationships in your life. And is there any better example of the power of manifestation than that of conceiving a human being from spirit into flesh?
Before we can consistently love others, our own reservoir must be full. It doesn’t have to stay full all the time, but learning to notice when levels are dangerously low is essential for your spiritual well-being. In this chapter, we learned that everything starts with spirit. The fundamental relationship that exists between you and the numinous will influence all subsequent relationships in your lifetime.
Your connection to spirit and the universe is the most important relationship in your life. Repairing this relationship will heal all other relationships, including those with your family, partner, and children (born and unborn). You need not return to a spiritual or religious practice that you once lived by in order to renew this primary relationship, nor do you have to become a true believer in a new system; you simply need to have a practice to listen and connect to your intuition.
When we make time for ourselves, especially as mothers, we steer the ship for our entire family and karmic circle. In this space, you can alchemize anger into compassion and self-knowledge, but you must first find what it is that fills your own heart before you share your heart with others.