Lorne Brown:

By listening to the Conscious Fertility Podcast, you agree to not use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or others. Consult your own physician or healthcare provider for any medical issues that you may be having. This entire disclaimer also applies to any guest or contributors to the podcast. Welcome to Conscious Fertility, the show that listens to all of your fertility questions so that you can move from fear and suffering to peace of mind and joy. My name is Lorne Brown. I’m a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine and a clinical hypnotherapist. I’m on a mission to explore all the paths to peak fertility and joyful living. It’s time to learn how to be and receive so that you can create life on purpose.
Welcome to another episode of the Conscious Fertility Podcast. I’m with a fellow Canadian, actually I’m with a fellow British Colombian. I’m Ashley Holmes, who is a holistic fertility coach, and I’ve invited her on to talk about her personal story and also what she does in her fertility coaching because she has a personal experience of going through infertility and coming through the other side of it. I think filling more hole and complete. I’ll give you a little background about her and then I’m going to ask Ashley if she’s willing to share her story. Hint, she said before we started recording. She would. So Ashley, she’s a holistic fertility coach and she’s dedicated to empowering women on the fertility journey. Through the integration of mind, body and spirit, she has a deep understanding of ancient wisdom and modern practices. She guides her clients to create a fertile foundation within emphasizing stress, resolution, healing and nourishment. Her compassionate approach helps women embrace their journey with inner peace and confidence. Ashley’s work not only supports fertility but fosters overall wellbeing, making her sought after expert for those seeking holistic solutions in their quest for motherhood. And she also has certifications in several forms of yoga therapy as well as her Reiki level two. Ashley, welcome to the Conscious Fertility Podcast.

Ashley Holmes:
Thank you. I’m excited to be here.

Lorne Brown:
You wrote a book, one of the authors of a book called Nourish, and so that’s kind of how you came on my radar and I saw resonated with some of the stuff that you were sharing. But I also think I have some knowledge around fertility from my training, 24 years of experience treating fertility, hearing women and men go through this process. But one thing I cannot have is personal experience of infertility. And so I think it’s always helpful when somebody has been through it can share their ups and downs and that’s where I thought it’d be interesting to have you on the show. So would you be willing to tell us your experience and are you okay if I ask questions as you tell your story out of curiosity and just wanting to know more?

Ashley Holmes:
Absolutely. I think that my path chose me and everything happens for a reason and that’s why I now choose to help others is that I feel blessed. I do have three children now and know that so many people are on that quest for motherhood and are struggling and often struggling silently.

Lorne Brown:
And do you remember what it was like or did you even have a diagnosis before you had your three children? And what was your journey like? Because you have certifications in yoga and reiki now, I’m curious if you were already learning and doing and living that way before you were trying to conceive or was the infertility like what we call a wake up call, the challenge of infertility brought you to learn these other modalities into go within? How did you come to this practice and how did fertility as some people say, how did it happen for you instead of to you?

Ashley Holmes:
It definitely happened for me and for a long time I was in denial. Over a decade ago I lived in Manitoba. There was one clinic and I finally decided to make a conscious choice to go down that road thinking this is either going to end in happiness or heartbreak. And it did end in happiness. I was finally blessed with twins, but it definitely was not a road that I was wanting or willing to go down again to have more children. And with the diagnosis of unexplained infertility, the doctors didn’t have any answers for me and I walked away thinking that I could not conceive on my own.

Lorne Brown:
So when you first went, how long were you trying before you went down the road of a RT for your first and you had twins? So how long were you trying before you tried something different Through the medical system?

Ashley Holmes:
We had been trying for at least 18 months to two years and it was like, okay, it’s time to dive deeper.

Lorne Brown:
And so you dove deeper. And then what was it that you had unexplained infertility, which meant they just can’t find a reason for your infertility. You’re having difficulty conceiving evidenced by you haven’t conceived, but when they ran the blood tests and they do the ultrasounds and your partner and you, nothing showed up out of the ordinary. Now we can talk later in our clinic we do functional medicine tests too. So we do a deep dive to see if there’s any subtle imbalances that could be impacting your fertility. Many people say unexplained infertility isn’t that it’s unknown, it’s just that maybe we haven’t dug deep enough. And to be fair, we keep getting advancements. So it’s not a criticism of the system as much as sometimes we just don’t have the test to find out what is going on. So you had a diagnosis unexplained, I’m imagining that was a little bit frustrating. Now you don’t know what’s going on, so how do you fix it? And so you had some resistance doing the medical treatments. What was your medical treatment that brought you to your twins?

Ashley Holmes:
It was eventually clomid that worked because, and also I just want to interject by saying that it wasn’t until they said this should have worked by now, you should have with this method, we’re going to move on to the next protocol. At which point I was pretty defeated and deflated thinking that I was doing everything as I had been told and prescribed. So why wasn’t this working? And it really was in that moment of sort of surrender that I feel like I was blessed with twins because I was energetically at doing everything possible even though I wasn’t in the energetic space yet, I went in knowing that I’m just going to give it my all and if I walk away with nothing, at least I know that I gave it my all.

Lorne Brown:
So there’s two things I want ask about what you did. And then I want to get back to this word surrender because in the conscious work that I like to share and talk about and all the guests we have, there’s this idea of surrender, letting go and it’s not giving up. It doesn’t mean you’re resigned to it, it just means you’re no longer in resistance to it. So like you said, you have that flow, energy can happen, things can happen through you. So I want to hear your take on it written about this. You had said though to quote, you should have been pregnant by now. What were you doing? Because Clate is often one of the first things they do in a fertility clinic, one of their least invasive. So what were you doing outside of intercourse that’s not a medical intervention intercourse, what were you doing that you felt like, wait, it hasn’t happened yet and you had that your word wasn’t frustration but there was a little bit of a shock to you that you hadn’t conceived yet?

Ashley Holmes:
I was doing all the temperature readings and going to the clinic or the hospital for all of the tests and trying to tick all the boxes that I could and then feeling like, well, why isn’t this happening? But also feeling like there was something missing and not being able to find that for myself, not knowing there was more and going to the bookstore and buying books, but not being able to put those practices into place for myself. I wasn’t in the space and place to be able to do body relaxation scans or even understand EFT wasn’t on my radar. Then to be able to do that for myself, if someone would’ve been able to guide me through those things, yes, I probably could have dropped into a state of relaxation and let go of some stress, but there was no one there to sort of hold my hand and be like, this can help you, this can benefit you on your journey.

Lorne Brown:
You brought something up that just brought some awareness to me and thank you. So it was just the test. So you’re having regular intercourse and you’re doing your basal body temperature. They’ve done their blood work. Some people have monitoring and that’s just monitoring testing, that’s not like an intervention to overcome fertility, it’s just looking for what’s going on. And what I am just hearing is how stressful that is just for people. You’re not even in the treatment stage really. You’re just why is it not happening every month you get that report card, your period and how stressful that is. And so eventually you did this for a period of time where they’re monitoring, you’re doing testing, you’ve been trying for, it sounds like you said earlier about 18 months and then you did a Clomid cycle. And did you conceive on your first try with Clomid?

Ashley Holmes:
Oh no, not at all. It was three rounds and they had given me a six month prescription, but after three rounds it was, this should have worked by now, you should be pregnant by now. And then sort of thinking, well, I still have this medication before we move on to other things because they had checked my tubes, everything was clear. There was no medical reason why this wasn’t happening. And so it was like, hey, we’re going to move on to the next protocol. And it was just in that sort of waiting period and it was like, okay, I still have this. I can still use this. And also it wasn’t the immense amount of pressure that I was placing on myself to make this happen.

Lorne Brown:
And for you, how was the Clomid? I know they do letrozole a lot more often now than Clomid another ovulation drug, less side effects, but how did your body receive the medicine? How did you feel on that medication? Because some people, if they fly through it and some people it’s quite uncomfortable. What was it like for you? It

Ashley Holmes:
Was uncomfortable. It was like an emotional roller coaster ride that I just wanted to hop off and yet I didn’t think I had any options or alternatives to not keep doing what I was being prescribed. And so I just felt like this is the only way, but why is this the only way? This didn’t feel good in my mind, body and spirit and I didn’t feel like myself. And so that’s why when I was blessed with my twins, I was like, I’m not going down that road again. I can’t do that to myself again. And it’s far less probably than a lot of people go through who do multiple rounds of IVF and all sorts of things. But for me that was enough of a taste of I didn’t like how I felt during that whole entire process.

Lorne Brown:
You just reminded me of a story. I was working with a woman on Clom med. She would projectile vomit on Clom, right through acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine. She was able to do the clom med. This is ages ago. The clinics have come to such a different state of integration in Vancouver than it was back then. I’ve been doing this for 24 years. So at the time of this recording, it’s been a while, but I remember how surprised I was that her doctor told her, don’t take those herbs. We don’t understand ’em, we don’t know what’s in them. But yet the acupuncture herbs almost took all of her symptoms away while she was on glommed and she ovulated on it, but when she wasn’t on the acupuncture herbs, she had projectile vomiting. And so again, just shows you now clinics will work with us and we can do the integration, but a lot of people can suffer on these medications. You said that you didn’t want to do it for the, again, after you had your twins, what did you have, by the way, what are your twins?

Ashley Holmes:
Boy and a girl? So really I had the dream, right and it was like just be grateful you’ve achieved what so many people are. That’s their end goal. And yet a little piece of me was just wanting to know why was there no answers? Why was this such a struggle for so long and why didn’t this happen in the way that I thought that this was going to happen? Because I think we all have the preconceived notion that, oh, I want to start a family, that this is going to happen easily and naturally and it’s just going to flow.

Lorne Brown:
That’s the dream, right? Get married white picket fence, have a baby and it may be a dog or a cat. And that didn’t happen for you. And so it was unsettling not to know why. Interesting. Even though you had twins, you still felt, I guess incomplete in the sense you didn’t know why.

Ashley Holmes:
I think I’ve been a seeker from a young age, and so I think that there was just that burning desire inside of me. And I had gone back onto birth control until probably my twins were about two. And then I was like, why am I doing this? I couldn’t conceive

Lorne Brown:
Naturally

Ashley Holmes:
Before and I was like, why am I taking this medication? And I just full on stop because I was like, I didn’t want to keep putting more medicine into my body. And nothing happened for years until I landed on my yoga mat and then began to embody and embrace the ancient yoga teachings and philosophy and wisdom that I was not familiar yet with. And it completely changed my life and the trajectory of my life.

Lorne Brown:
I want to hear more about that and I think the conclusion, just to let our listeners know is you conceived a third child and that one was without any support from the medical system just through your yoga practice and other things that you did, which we’re curious to know what did you do? So going off birth control pill, very good idea if you’re trying to conceive, so you did that one, but you found yoga and kind of share with us kind of what if or there were any transformations. And the reason I bring this up, those that work with me in my conscious work know that I’m not attached to my tools. So actually I’m trained as an acupuncturist, but I’m not attached to my needles. I’m trained as a clinical hypnotherapist and I have many tools. I love using emotional freedom technique by the way, as part of my process.
You mentioned EFT earlier, but they’re just tools for me to get you into that present moment. When you are present, you are so resourced, that means resistance is down to nothing almost. And now you have free flow, flow and receptivity. And I believe other things flow through you. There’s conscious of spirit where miracles can happen, however I’m not attached to yoga or there’s many things that can bring you to presence, including suffering, including severe bad situations sometimes as a wake up. So I just prefer that we use the yoga mat to get to that awakening versus a terrible situation in our life. So can you share what you found through yoga and what you think changed because you ended up conceiving a third child and just tell us a little bit about your surrender experiment.

Ashley Holmes:
Definitely. I started by practicing and getting trained in haha yoga, which is your hot flow, quick paced yoga. And yes, there was a transformation there in mind, body and spirit of being more present and aware. But it wasn’t until I dove deeper into yin yoga and restorative yoga and therapeutic yoga that I really began to see transformation within me and had a spiritual awakening of what I was unconsciously creating in my life and having that recognition of I can consciously create what I desire when my attention and my energy is flowing correctly in my body. And so I really worked with my nervous system to come out of fight or flight mode, into rest and digest mode and to balance my chakras, to heal my chakras, to do a lot of inner work that was necessary and yet that I wasn’t accessing and I didn’t know how to access beforehand.
And so it really was eyeopening and it changed my life and I embodied and a more holistic lifestyle. I incorporate the sister science of yoga, which is Ayurveda in my life and use it with my clients because it helps me to stay balanced and aligned because it is working with your mind and your body together to serve your inborn constitution that you arrived here on this earth with. And I think really infertility is an invitation for us to dive deeper and to get to know ourselves better and to understand our bodies better and to be able to be open to receive because we may think we are, but energetically are we.

Lorne Brown:
So tell me more about this. You said a few things that I’m like, oh, I got to ask you a question about this and that. You said on your yoga mat, I think I heard you say you had an awakening. So what is an awakening and what was your experience?

Ashley Holmes:
It was really a light bulb moment of realizing that I was unconsciously creating things that I didn’t desire in my life, that I had unconsciously created my own infertility, but I also was therefore able to consciously create fertility within myself because it was just that awareness of an empowerment before I gave all my power away to the medical world of if you can’t help me, then this isn’t going to work for me. There’s no hope for me, this is impossible for me. And really turned inward to see what was possible for me, where I was energetically blocked and how I could learn to sit with discomfort, how I could work with the issues in my tissues that had accumulated over the years and to breathe into that because previously I could not sit with discomfort and my way of coping was to escape. My husband is from New Zealand. I have escaped in lots of different ways throughout my life. And so it was becoming conscious of and aware of my habits and my patterns and my conditionings and learning to rewire those to ones that serve me and to begin to notice and be aware of the thoughts that are looping through my mind day in and day out that don’t serve me, that are often negative, that are often repetitive. And to see where I go unconscious in my life and to bring more presence and awareness into my state of being,

Lorne Brown:
That’s the key presence. Our local BC guy, Eckhart, the power of now, right? Find that presence and having tools to help you find that presence or I think it’s always there to attune to that presence is the secret sauce. You mentioned that you escaped and you mentioned your husband’s from New Zealand, so I just want to connect the dots. You were having something not going well, you escaped to New Zealand and that’s where you met your husband. Is that connecting the dots?

Ashley Holmes:
Yes, yes. So yeah,

Lorne Brown:
Something’s happening, but look, something good came out of it. This were better, right? Because of whatever you had to escape from it was what brought you to your husband. So in the end it worked out well for you and

Ashley Holmes:
You’re

Lorne Brown:
In fertility and now look at what you’re doing, helping people with fertility learn these tools to surrender to have more flow and receptivity. What do you say to somebody, because I heard you say I was unconsciously creating my reality and I unconsciously created my infertility and then you’re saying you consciously created your fertility. Well there’s a lot of listeners here that have not created their fertility yet in their mind and they may blame themselves or feel guilty. So can you unpack that a bit more? Because I know when you said I unconsciously created my reality, my infertility, you weren’t blaming yourself when you said that you were in flow. There was not this blame. I just want you to go and unpack that. So I’ll zip it you go.

Ashley Holmes:
Really, throughout my process I had amazing mentors and mentors. My mentors could see sometimes when I was struggling. So I had the invitation to sit with one of my mentors and one of the things that I moved through and processed was what the shame feel like in your body and where do you feel that? And to actually be able to sit with and process and move through things that I hadn’t been able to before because I didn’t have the tools or the awareness. And so through my journey I was able to find a lot of peace and I was able to find and release a lot of grief and guilt and all these energetically, heavily charged emotions that we hold onto and that we suppress and that we push down and yet they’re still there and they’re beneath the surface and they’re affecting our organs and they’re affecting our whole state of wellbeing.
And to be able to just have the space and grace and sacred space to be able to be witnessed and acknowledged and not be seen as good or bad or any of those other things is really an enlightening place to be and a space to offer other people because there is so many heavy emotions that come alongside an infertility journey and often we are not equipped to be able to move through those with a place of ease and grace and it’s very uncomfortable and often we’re just doing the next thing, doing the next thing in order to get there. And it really is a yin approach that I offer, not a yang approach, because we let go of the doing and we allow ourselves to just be, and it is a different energy and a different dynamic.

Lorne Brown:
There’s so many things that you’re saying that I’m like, okay, I got to start writing things down. I have questions after question, but I’ll work backwards and see how my mind goes. So that yin yang approach, yin being in that receptive mode, aware and receptive yang is that doing and we’re human beings versus human doings. In my practice being my past history is a chartered account and a CPA. A lot of the people I see are lawyers and executives, entrepreneurs. And so it’s hard for them to get into that receptive mode. And then some people, they’ve never been that kind of person. And so I have a podcast, I love how he said it, by armit ami, and he has this approach do be doobie doobie idea. And so sometimes we can do a little bit to get into being, but the key is being so some people are able to just sit and be and sometimes you need to do a little bit.
So I’ll share with people that this yin yang, it is a dance and when you have somebody facilitate, they’ll be able to kind of work with you and know whether to go through the yin or the yang at that session. The facilitation is important. So working with somebody like Ashley, and I see this in my practice and I’ve had it through my own experience, the emotions that you shared about guilt and shame, they are so dense and heavy that they’re very hard to sit with and observe. They are like, I know for me sometimes I need a bucket. I feel like I’m going to vomit when I really go in and lean into it and bring that witness. When the witness comes, then it’s not as gross. But when I’m in it, it’s as you said, terra box quote, your issues get stuck in your tissues.
So the can help because it’s a very uncomfortable experience. But if somebody facilitates and you learn to sit with it and observe it, the charge comes out of it, you take the charge out and then it lets go of you like energy, emotion, energy, emotion. The very nature of energy is to move up and out to quote you what you said when you suppress it, when you resist it, I’ll add when you project it out or believe in it, then you feed it. But if you can fully become aware and witness it with kindness and compassion, the charge comes out of it and then it can just move through you. So you’re meant to feel these emotions based on a situation, but they’re only supposed to last 90 seconds for a few minutes and move through you. But being human beings, we get them stuck in our tissues.
And I work with a lot with fertility, but in my practice I have people that have had a bad divorce looking for a relationship, want to get out of relationship, financial disasters happen, serious illness, fertility. One thing that I know that’s been in common is when you distill down their stories we’re more the same than different in that it comes up with not good enough shame and guilt. Has that been your experience personally and then with all the clients that you work with that we need distill it down? There’s a common, there’s kind of this common theme, although the story looks different, the feeling and belief is similar.

Ashley Holmes:
It definitely, I feel stems from a place of belief of what is possible for them oftentimes and the worthiness factor because it is playing so heavily on women that all women are meant to be mothers. And so then what is wrong with me? Or people fill out their forms and say, I’m fixed or I feel broken. And I’m like, okay, we’re going to have a conversation about that. We can still work together. But the mind chatter that is going on and how they view themselves in this process and how they look at themselves and their journey is really, really important. And it’s often unconscious and we don’t realize it until we have a conversation with someone that what is flowing beneath the surface isn’t serving us. And what is seen can’t be unseen. And that’s really the beauty of it.

Lorne Brown:
In your work and in our conversations, you’ve talked about everything is energy and you had blockages. I’m wondering if you can elaborate on that. And then you had shared with me that you felt guided by your higher self. And I kind of want to know for most of our listeners that listen to this podcast are familiar with the higher self, but love to hear your version of that. So what do you mean by everything is energy and can you share a little bit about that being guided by your higher self? How do you in tune to that? More importantly,

Ashley Holmes:
When I realized I was more than just my physical body, that was the beginning of opening a new door for me. And a lot of the work that I offer is with the root chakra to create, have that safety and security within because we cannot bring in new life if we don’t have a foundation of safety and security. And then to work with the sacral chakra to work with the reproductive organs to be in flow, to allow what is instead of what we think should be. And then your solar plexus is working with your worthiness through this whole thing, your self-esteem through this whole thing, how you view yourself, do you feel like you’re less than because your family or your coworker or somebody else’s pregnant and it’s not you and right up to your heart. And working with the self-love the self-compassion and also any grief that is present because field rounds of IVS miscarriages, there is a huge undercurrent of grief that is often brushed aside because it’s not given the same recognition often as say someone that has been earth side for so long and so that needs to be addressed and our throat Chopra and our ability to express ourselves, to express our needs, to express how this is influencing and affecting us, are we able to express that?
I know I wasn’t the first time around, no one knew that I was struggling with infertility. I was leaving work and going to appointments and not saying a word and hoping no one would start to question why I was leaving work so often where I was going, what was happening, what was unquote wrong. And so that’s really important and that can lead to a disconnection, which is your intuition, which is your third eye chakra. And so the first time around I did not have that connection and that was the missing length that I was missing. I did not have a mind, body and spirit connection. I was very disconnected. I was doing the things with my body, but my mind was not there. It was not present. It was either in the future or it was in the past and was very seldom present. And so it was becoming conscious and aware of that and realizing that I have a spirit, I can connect to that spirit. That’s who I am and that’s what makes me unique and makes me me and to make that an intentional practice every day as well. And when I do that and I set that tone and energy and frequency and vibration from for the day, it is very different to just being pulled out of bed by mom.

Lorne Brown:
And how do you attune to that higher self? How do you share this with your clients and yourself to help them attune to that higher self and to get into that state of surrender or presence? What’s your modalities and styles?

Ashley Holmes:
Really it is stillness and solitude because when we’re so busy we cannot oftentimes feel connected to ourselves when we’re in the hustle and bustle and the grind and the to-dos. So it’s taking that time to tune in, to listen. And whether that’s through meditation or whether that is just being in nature, there’s many ways that, and I feel like it’s important that you find your way. It’s not me telling you how you should feel connected to you, what lights you up, what fuels you with joy in your day and connect to that party of you. I have non-negotiables every day where it’s like I get on my mat because I’ve just habited the practice of get on your mat and all is coming and everything has and I didn’t know when. And it’s releasing the timelines and the expectations and the attachments to what I think things should be and surrender to what is in the moment.

Lorne Brown:
I’m writing a book now and it’s basically what I do in my practice. I don’t have a title, but if I was going to give it a title, it’s called How to Now. Because when people come to me they’re like, how do I do this? I want that serenity, I want that stillness. And again, some people just can just stop and find it. And then some people like me and the majority of the people that are attracted to me like these, I call them tools or gimmicks, just doings to get into being. That’s the key. The key is the beingness. There’s many ways to do that. There’s so many simple tools out there. I like what you shared though, having that daily practice. And so I want to share a tip with just our listeners. I have practices and tools that I share with my audience.
I do them for myself, not all of ’em every day, but I have certain systems the listeners know about my notice except choose again. But I just want to throw out gratitude for those of you that are doers that want to have an activity and there’s some cool science behind it that if you can sit every morning and just practice gratitude and I invite you to write it down versus just think it and bring up the feeling of gratitude because it’s the feeling that puts out the energy, the power behind the gratitude. You want to feel that. And the research has shown, because I don’t want to go into details on this, but today I just want to share that when you practice gratitude, they can see the actual physical change in the brain, wiring changing. And we can understand through neuroscience, there’s a thing called tagging.
And if you have 10 things in your life and nine are good and one is bad and you focus on the bad, your life sucks. Vice versa. If you have 10 things in your life and one is good and nine are bad and you focus on the good, life is good. And I have this quote that where the mind goes, the chief follows, what you focus on becomes your reality. And then through research we see how practicing gratitude changes, wires the brain. So you start to perceive, and it’s almost as if you’re attracting more of that into your life. To give an example that everybody can relate to is when you’ve ever been shopping for a new car, all of a sudden you see more of that make and model on the road. There is no more make or model of that car. It’s that’s where your focus has, well actually here’s one for our audience.
Everybody you’re seeing is pregnant or with a stroller. It’s not that there’s any more people that are pregnant or have babies, it’s just that’s where your focus is. So you can, as Ashley shared, she was unconsciously creating her reality. And then through her practice and tools, she started consciously creating her reality. And one of the tools I want to share with you is daily gratitude. Three original things that you can be grateful for in your life. And the key is not just writing them down as a duty to write them down. That’s not what we’re saying. Be in that moment as you write them down and bring up the feeling of gratitude and see if you can even expand it, make it 10 times more. I just wanted to share that with our audience.

Ashley Holmes:
I love that. And a way I love to incorporate that is when you open your blinds, it’s just like, it’s sort of a new way to look at your day and to start your day in that place. It’s like good morning world and draw in that energy towards you. And if you can step outside and do that in nature even better. But it’s a great start to the day.

Lorne Brown:
Yeah, start your day, set the intention, what you want to create in the day. And if situations outside of you are not what you like, this practice means that for a moment because then you’re focusing on those right for a moment. Just dismiss that reality for a moment and just put your attention and intention on practicing gratitude. You had said something about feeling safe and secure as part of your practice and earlier when we chatted you talked about your nervous system. So I kind of wanted to go down that road and when you’re in a state of alarm, your body goes into that fight or flight or freeze and your resources are mobilized for survival and there’s less available for creativity, healing and reproduction. And when you feel safe and secure, then you go into that rest and digest, also known as the breed and feed emphasis on breed here, nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system. And that frees up resources for healing, creativity, and reproduction. Did you want to add anything? Because I heard you talk about your nervous system, you talked about pre having twins where you were and then kind of where you are now. And it sounds like you were always in the state of alarm unconsciously or consciously, and now you consciously put yourself in a state of safety parasympathetic. Do you want to unpack that a bit? You did share a little bit about the nervous system and feeling safe and secure.

Ashley Holmes:
I think it’s important to also know that we are healing and it’s a process and it’s not that we have arrived. It’s like a lotus flower and peeling back the layers. And it’s really a practice we are going to get triggered, things are going to come up on our fragility journey and then not on our fertility journey. And it’s having tools to navigate those. But it is really important, especially from an Ayurvedic perspective and lens as well, to have the nervous system in that state of rest and digest and to feel safe and secure in your body because the nutrients flow down and the last ones to be nourished in your body are your reproductive tissues. And so that is why it’s so important to, it’s not only what we eat, but it’s the nutrients that we’re actually receiving from the food. Because if we’re stressed when we’re eating or we’re eating on the run or we’re in our car, we’re not actually getting what we think that we’re getting from that food. And so there’s a lot of mindfulness as well.

Lorne Brown:
Yeah, that’s important. And as you said, you can be eating all the right foods, but two things on a very physical level, if let’s say you have a really poor gut microbiome, poor gut health, nothing’s getting absorbed. So we always want, we address the physical and the mind body here, the emotional and then what you just shared that if you’re eating while you’re driving, probably not chewing your food properly but stressed, then you’re in sympathetic. And that means not as much blood flow is going to your digestive system to absorb. And when you’re in parasympathetic, which is your rest and digest or blood flow. And so getting into a state, and I like to share that before you eat, I have a breathing technique where you breathe in for four, hold for four out for eight in through the nose, out through the mouth, tongue of the roof of your mouth.
It’s on the Acubalance website. If people want this long exhale because it shows that it’s the exhale that engages the parasympathetic through research at heart rate variability studies done. So if you pause and just do infra four, hopeful 4 0 4 8 for six to eight times, you’re communicating to your nervous system, I’m safe. And you do that just before you eat just to help support your body in that state of absorption. And what happens is because you brought mindfulness presence to your meal, you may look at your plate and say, I’m not going to eat that. You may be eating to fill the void to fill the stress looking for those sweetss and carbs to numb you. And when you bring a little bit of awareness, you may look and decide that you don’t want to put that into your temple, your body.

Ashley Holmes:
Oh, I love that you just said that word because that really changed the trajectory of how I looked at myself and my body when I saw on the yoga studio wall years ago, a BKS ier quote that was the body is your temple for the soul resides in it or something to that effect. And it really shifted for me the way I looked at my body and the way I started to treat my body and not to squeeze it and manipulate it into this shape or pose, but to begin to treat it with the care and love and respect that it deserves.

Lorne Brown:
Love it. So what are some of the things in your practice and that you share with others to help them love their temple and keep their temple in good health, mind and body? I get you do yoga. What other things would somebody expect to learn from you as their coach?

Ashley Holmes:
There is yoga and also bearing in mind that yoga isn’t just the asanas, it’s there’s eight limbs of yoga. And so it’s learning about your senses and breathing practices and all of these things alongside of it as well as meditations. And one of the ones that I really love to offer for people that don’t think that they can meditate or try to meditation practice and can’t stick with it is yoga nidra because it is like yic sleep and the benefits that you receive for the subconscious mind. Your subconscious will take whatever it needs from the practice and apply it to you to the five kos of your being of your body. And you cannot do it wrong. And the blessing of it is when you’re stressed that 20 minutes of it is equivalent to four hours of sleep. So it is really just that perfect reset and deep healing to really just change yourself from the inside out.
I love that and I offer reiki to my clients when they receive their periods, just to have that energy hearing to allow themselves to just be, to reset and to start afresh and to sort of clear the past month and anything that has come up and that they have been navigating and to start anew and to really let go of what has been and focus on this month and to not get so caught up. And also focus begins to shift from the baby to themselves. And when they can do that and they can work on themselves and things begin to flow a lot more freely and easily, the changes are seen quite quickly and I determine their Ayurvedic dosha. So whether they are pizza or Kapha or Vata determines what sort of yoga practices I would recommend breathing practices, how to balance themselves and stay in rhythm and harmony with the seasons with nature so that everything is more congruent for them. There’s more of a state of equilibrium within and so that they feel like their best selves. And when they can feel like that, then everything starts to feel more easy and everything starts to flow more easily.

Lorne Brown:
Yeah, we’ll finish with this quote then The more you do it, the easier it becomes, the easier it becomes the longer you do it, like you said, keep doing it and it becomes easy. And the other part I heard 20 minutes is like four hours of sleep, the 20 minute practice, that’s that idea that small actions lead to massive results. It just needs to be done regularly, daily. So that small action, if you do it after three months, six months, a year, if you look behind your timeline, you realize what transformation it made massively these small things. So don’t dismiss these simple things that Ashley is sharing. So you went from frustrated, unexplained infertility, trying for over 18 months, having a bit of a resistance on your clom me ride, three cycles unsuccessful. Then when you’re thinking they were thinking for you to move forward to a more invasive maybe like IVF, you still had medication, you sounded like you’re a little bit more in a letting go phase.
I got the drugs anyhow, why not? You took them, you got your twins, you decided that you didn’t want to go that way again, that was your choice and you changed your lifestyle and your practice started understanding you have a temple and you create your reality on some level, co-created at least, and you were able to conceive your third trial naturally and this infertility journey has transformed you and like everybody that has some form of awakening or have had this experience, they just want to share it. And now you’re a fertility health coach. How do people find you? I’ll put it in the show notes, but what’s the best way people wanted to find you? So I’ll list off what we’re going to put in our show notes and then if they want to find you the easiest, what do you think? So she has her website, which is in the show notes, holistic fertility coach. I nnc my Canva site, easy to find that on the show notes to just use the link. She’s on Instagram that Ashley Holmes, she’s on Facebook, she has a Facebook group for her clients. It looks like she also has a free gift for you guys if you want to read her chapter on Nourish. You can get that as also in the show notes. Where do you want to direct them if they just kind of want to find you? What’s the easiest way for people to just to find you

Ashley Holmes:
Best? And easiest way to find me is probably my Instagram handle. And all you have to do to find me is find the baby in the lotus because no mud, no lotus. So my heart goes out to you and I really do hope that you find the support that you deserve on your journey. I was going to speak to the two experiences that I had while I was pregnant. So the twins being a high risk, high stress pregnancy, also an emergency c-section, longer recovery period and having to care for two twins. And then on the flip side, being conscious and aware and consciously conceiving my third child, my singleton, having a natural conception, my water breaking, going for a hike, delivering my baby naturally and being back at baby and me yoga 10 days later was a night and day difference. And truly shows you what possible when you tap into your inner power and the truth of who you really are and what you’re capable of.

Lorne Brown:
Thanks for sharing that story. Thank you, Ashley. Off camera, Ashley and I were chatting and so I just want to share, I’ve shared this piece before on episodes, but I haven’t mentioned it for a while. And what kind of came out of our discussion off camera and on this podcast was a bit about my hidden agenda and being aware that when people come to me or come to people like Ashley, they’re wanting to conceive. And so we get that, hey, if I can do something to help me lower the resistance to help more flow, if I can do anything to help me get pregnant, I’ll try it. So here, sure, I’ll try conscious work or I’ll try yoga. My hidden agenda is that I subscribe to this idea that the outer world is a reflection of our inner world. So rather than go and work on the outer world, we heal our inner world.
And situations like infertility or divorce or a bad breakup are opportunities. I wouldn’t call them gifts because nobody would ask for them. I would give those gifts back, but they are opportunities to heal and have this wake up process within you. And the reason this is important to me, my hidden agenda is that I’ve heard through other people on my podcast that in one generation we could heal this planet. Meaning that because of the parenting we all had, myself included, we didn’t get the attachment needs met, that we grew up feeling separate and not safe unconsciously. And we use drugs to numb it, we’ll join gangs. And if one generation these children could be fully attached to, then they wouldn’t need to join gangs, cut or drugs and they wouldn’t go to war because they don’t see themselves as fully separate. So this whole idea in my practice I do at Accu Balance and the podcast is you go from conscious, conscious infertility to conscious conception to conscious pregnancy, to conscious parenting.
So that process brings you so you are seeing and hearing yourself, you have healed that inner child. You have come to that place of feeling more awake and aware of, tuned into your higher self basically. And now you’re able to consciously be there for your child. So that’s my hidden agenda. And with that, either you’ll conceive and have your baby and if not, you still feel whole and complete. So even though you may feel disappointed that that desire was not fulfilled, you’re still okay inside. So we that emotional resilience and so there is no unsuccess I guess because you either have your baby and you feel whole and complete or you don’t have your baby and you’re still whole and complete. That’s my intention. Anyhow, if you’re interested in conscious work, check out some of the blogs on our website under the Mood and healing section. And I do this conscious work remotely, so through telehealth. And then I also do it in my clinic where I combine it with acupuncture, low level laser therapy, and if needed, Chinese herbal medicine and supplements. Wishing all the best.

Speaker:
If you’re looking for support to grow your family. Contact Acubalance Wellness Center at Acubalance. They help you reach your peak fertility potential through their integrative approach using low level laser therapy, fertility, acupuncture, and naturopathic medicine. Download the Accu Balance Fertility Diet and Dr. Brown’s video for mastering manifestation and clearing subconscious blocks. Go to accu balance.ca. That’s Acubalance.ca.

Lorne Brown:
Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Conscious Fertility, the show that helps you receive life on purpose. Please take a moment to subscribe to the show and join the community of women and men on their path to peak fertility and choosing to live consciously on purpose. I would love to continue this conversation with you, so please direct message me on Instagram at Lorne Brown official. That’s Instagram, Lorne Brown official, or you can visit my websites Lorne brown.com and Acubalance.ca. Until the next episode, stay curious and for a few moments, bring your awareness to your heart center and breathe.