The Vital Veda Podcast: Ayurveda | Holistic Health | Cosmic and Natural Law
The Vital Veda Podcast is a show for people who intend to live the most evolutionary life at their highest potential, while experiencing total wellness and bliss.
Our host Dylan Smith brings you the most inspiring interviews with thought leaders and experts from around the world in the fields of health, spirituality, personal development and natural law.
Dylan Smith is an Ayurvedic practitioner, holistic health educator and exponent of Vedic wisdom. He is devoted to learning, sharing and radiating this profound knowledge for everyone to utilise and enjoy.
Enliven your natural capability to tune into your own body and mind, awaken your instincts and engage in life in a frictionless flow.
Find out more at www.vitalveda.com.au
The Vital Veda Podcast: Ayurveda | Holistic Health | Cosmic and Natural Law
Natural Conception at 45, Fertility Stories | Jillian Lavender #123
What if the secret to fertility lies in the power of the mind and the harmony of the body? Today, we'll delve into the remarkable journey of Jillian Lavender, a meditation teacher who conceived her daughter naturally at the ripe age of 45.
Jillian takes us through her inspiring transition from the high-stress corporate world to the calm and serene realm of meditation. She bares it all, recounting the struggles of balancing career and family ambitions, and how she found solace and success through meditation and Ayurvedic practices.
Jillian's story is one of faith, resilience, and the power of surrender. If you're grappling with fertility issues, Jillian's journey will offer you wisdom, encouragement, and practical advice.
Her personal experience is filled with heartfelt insights and profound wisdom, making this episode a treasure trove of knowledge for anyone navigating the path of fertility. Whether you're on a fertility journey or just an interested listener, this episode will leave you with numerous insights and a fresh perspective.
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of natural conception at 45 years old Fertility stories with meditation teacher Jillian Lavender. Welcome to the Vital Beta Show. I'm your host, dylan Smith. I'm a holistic health educator and aerobatic practitioner based in Australia but works with a lot of people all around the world with fertility and preconception. It's probably the number one thing that I'm treating and working with at the moment, as every day I'm seeing someone either consciously wanting to conceive and prepare their body and optimize their health, to optimize the seed of their physiology, before planting that seed in order to create a new human or, which is increasingly becoming more common, is people. Am I cleaning with fertility issues or fertility problems, or struggling to conceive? And for this reason I've created a podcast series within the Vital Beta podcast, intertwined within on just hearing stories. It's really the intention is for it to be a story time and with different people from different interesting fertility journeys, and it's also inspiring journeys. And today we have someone very dear to me and someone very inspiring in many ways Jillian Lavender, who I've known for quite some time. She's taught thousands of people to meditate since 2003, along with her partner, michael Miller. She's taught they have taught meditation on every continent on earth, including Antarctica.
Speaker 1:Jillian's originally from New Zealand. She's held senior business roles in Sydney, Paris, new York. She was CEO. She was working in corporate in a very high demanding operative way but due to these high demand she learned Vedic meditation and then the improvements in her life were immediate. Her stress levels began to dissolve and fatigue subsided and she began to desire to have a child. Away from this kind of go go go focused on work. That slowly began to came and she let her CEO role, trained to become a meditation teacher, met her current partner, michael, and founded the Luddin Meditation Center and New York Meditation Center and eventually founded space and charm to bring into the earth a child. But it wasn't that easy. With plenty of trips to India with intensive Ayurvedic therapies, jillian tried for six years before naturally conceiving and giving birth to her now healthy 10 year old daughter, lowi, and at the time she gave birth she was 45.
Speaker 1:So along teach side teaching meditation, jillian speaks to groups about stress, well-being, the impact of becoming more mindful in their daily lives. She's also highly knowledgeable in Ayurveda, which we'll speak about, and consults with people regarding Ayurveda health, diet, sleep, fertility, lifestyle. Her first book was a recent one why Meditate? Because it Works and that's received praise for various media outlets. One of the reasons I wanted Jillian to speak is because of, of course, natural conception 45 years old, and I specifically work with quite a decent number of clients and patients in their late wanting to conceive, late 30s and even in the early 40s.
Speaker 1:So I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you do share it, it's very special because just basically the first time Jillian's opened up publicly about this story, about her personal story, which is, of course, very personal to her in different ways, and for more information you can check out other episodes on the Vital Beta podcast on fertility. We've had another fertility story by Tam Oblowitz, who was trying for one and a half years, but it was a big lesson of trust and surrender. And we've got plenty of podcast episodes a good handful on the topics of fertility and preconception and reproductive health. So have a scroll through, check those out. If you appreciate this, share it with a friend, leave a review on iTunes. Share it on Instagram story. Let me know what you think. Did you take something from this? Is something helped you on the journey? Has it been one other hearing it again which helps you because this is a lot about what we talk about here is the mind and acting from the heart, so hope you enjoy this episode. Much love. Hey, jillian.
Speaker 2:Hey, Jillian.
Speaker 1:Have you listened to the Vital Beta podcast before?
Speaker 2:I have. I have a while ago.
Speaker 1:So you may have listened to, before I've implemented, a question that I ask every guest as the first question. That question is what did you do this morning? What's your daily routine?
Speaker 2:Oh, my daily routine is that I wake up early and that by 5.30 AM this morning it was about 10 past five I just wake up.
Speaker 2:Naturally we I'm based in London, so we're going into the quiet winter months here, so it's very dark in the morning.
Speaker 2:But I got up and I did my morning, sort of brush my teeth and scrape my tongue, and had some sip, some warm water, and then I sat back up in bed and I, having sort of splashed some water on my face and I meditated and I did my morning meditation, actually lay down a little bit afterwards not for long, cause I knew I was doing this podcast and then, and then you know sort of the house wakes up, michael was also meditating, my partner who's a teacher, and then Lowy surfaced, our daughter, and then things sort of kicked off from there, getting her ready for school and I haven't eaten.
Speaker 2:I don't tend to eat early, so I've just had some hot water and got them out the door. They went off for a breakfast together and I got here after school and I've been here, yeah, just having a little bit of quiet time and doing some work and emails and all of that and getting ready. I'm teaching this week I teach Vedic meditation and have a lovely course going, so I've kind of getting ready for that and that's in the middle of the day, so I'm sort of prepping, and yeah, so that was my morning.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Do you usually meditate in bed, in your bed, in the morning?
Speaker 2:I do. You know, we live in central London, we don't have a huge apartment, so I tend to I always get out of bed and wake up. We always want the jumping off point to the waking state consciousness. But just the way it's set up here, I sort of I like that. I kind of hop back into bed, I have the pillows propped up behind me, I have my pashmina and I yeah, I like that spot. But I, you know, have been known to meditate in all sorts of crazy places.
Speaker 1:What are some of the craziest places you've meditated in? What comes to mind?
Speaker 2:Sitting on a camel and then I just don't desert, unlike this camel safari, which I don't actually recommend. But I was like where am I gonna? Where am I gonna meditate? And we were like going along with these grumpy camels and I was like I'm just gonna close my eyes. I was a bit wobbly, I wasn't a lot of back support.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've definitely meditated on some wobbly. The one comes to mind is just the buses in India up the mountain oh the buses. But actually I have to stop. I've noticed a pattern and it's happened multiple years of I actually can't meditate on a windy mountain road. I actually feel sick when I close my eyes. Interestingly. I'm not sure about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm the same. I've got cast sick a lot when I was little and I think there's still a kind of a legacy from that. I just don't like it. I don't find that to be comfortable at all. Much prefer to be having my eyes open in that moment. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:And you've taught, you and your partner Michael, of course. You founded London Meditation Center and New York Meditation Center and you've taught. Am I right that you've taught meditation in every continent in the world? Yes, that's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, including Antarctica. Yeah, yeah, how was teaching in Antarctica.
Speaker 1:Was it any different? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Chilly. Well, that was Michael. He went and did a course there, for it was a private course for one of our students who is having his 50th birthday party in Antarctica, as you do.
Speaker 2:And yes, it was an incredible experience to see people sitting literally on the ice, you know, and there are icebergs and they have got their eyes closed and you come out and there's that connection with nature that you have been experiencing so profoundly with the eyes closed and then to come out and it is there and such it's so immediate and it's that sense of bringing that connectivity, that sense of oneness, right there to your environment.
Speaker 2:And it prolongs that experience and it was very profound for people to integrate what they're experiencing with their eyes closed into their eyes open state with such, because we know, you know, we can have that moment when we are in nature and we watch that sunset or we have that connection to that wider environment and there is something transcendent about that. To have that in meditation and these are new meditators, they were newbies, you know, they'd only had a few meditations and then they come out and they can hold that experience for long time because of the environment being so pure and immediate. Yeah, it was very interesting experience to see that and to hear their experiences. But yes, I've been teaching for 20 years, so you know, you get around, you take that puja kit and you travel and I don't go anywhere without it and I end up teaching in all sorts of places and that's a great joy.
Speaker 1:Hmm, were you in Antarctica with Michael.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no. I had to be back here looking after Lowy, our daughter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course. Well, maybe you can relate with other, because I could like so relate to what you were just talking about. We've just moved and my afternoon meditation spot is on a creek with birds and I feel that it's very immediate. It's a very I mean, especially different to meditating in the central London, but it's waking, it's opening your eyes to that and it's almost.
Speaker 2:to be honest, when I first started coming here, I was like during my meditation was opening, and I also want to open my eyes and use to do it, and I'm sure they experience that in Antarctica because it's like what you want me to close my eyes when it's almost around me, you know it's like although I think that also Really highlighted for them that sort of that experience that is within and is available to us and is not environment dependent. And then they come out and then whoa, you know, of course there was a lot going on, you know, outside in the world around them. Pretty amazing, yeah okay.
Speaker 1:So we're going to get into the juice of this conversation about your conception journey, which I'm really excited and grateful for you to share this and I know it can be. It's a personal subject to personal Experience that you've had in your partner, michael, and your daughter, lowey, and everyone else involved. But I think it's so relevant because so many people are, of course, having struggles to conceive. Infertility is becoming fertility problems, becoming massive epidemics all around and, as the years go on, of course, people are now conceiving later in life. Are they getting married later? They having partners later? So I would love to hear your story. You conceived at what age?
Speaker 1:Forty five forty five years old and I'm super interested for your story because I haven't heard much about it, but I do know that you have a long history With my teachers and both of our doctors, the raju family in india and much earlier before my time visiting them, and I've heard you briefly talk about some of the Profound, deep experiences, intimate experiences, and I know how they treat fertility and I'm just sure you, being so close friend to them and a colleague them as well, have received some very special treatments and Treatment in the sense of so, so dynamic, not only physical, but so many in the different relationships you've had, and so we don't have to go into all the details.
Speaker 1:I know a lot of them. People want to understand and they take long to elaborate on, but I would love to hear about your journey first of all. Why forty five was it? That's only when you want it, or were you trying for before?
Speaker 2:yeah, well, you know, let's go back in time going quite a bit, quite a while, given that I'm, you know now fifty six. But you know I grew up in new zealand. I I Before you know before I didn't come from a family of Meditators or I have a god know what that was, and so I grew up in christ church, new zealand, and I Went on to the concept of pill in my late teens early, yeah, just as I'm coming up to twenty and I was on the pill for a while. I was had a partner, and how many years was I on the pill for me? Probably about eight or so, I would say. I moved to sydney, australia, and I started working there after I finish university and I was fortunate and I didn't have any kind of issues with being on the pill. I found it to be a didn't have a massive change in my monthly cycle. Everything was pretty normal, healthy, of course, knowing what I know now, you know what I've done, that now, what I knew then, that's what I did, and you know I I didn't having a child in a very interesting thing you know I was. It was something that, in a deep level, if I settle down, I'd say yes, yeah, that's something I want to do, but it wasn't something that I wanted to do immediately and it was a, it was a long term. You know I didn't want to get pregnant and you know it was all about my career.
Speaker 2:And prior to being a teacher full time teacher of a meditation I was I'm full steam ahead on my corporate career and I was doing very well in that and sort of what you would term is sort of the markers of that. And I was Setting up a business in my twenties. It was a global operation. I was, it was a start up. I was really that, moving through that process with speed and loving it. And so there was a decision and I think for women, you know, this is this often, you know it's how do we juggle, how do we balance those kinds of I want to have a career, I want to make a difference in this environment, I want to succeed and I'm, I'm that's moving along. And yet there is that in that background. Yes, yes, at some point I do want to family and I want to experience that. So it was career. Career, you know, and I move through that, worked in Sydney, I came off the pill. I have various partners. I moved to paris for work, I moved to London for work and then I decided to step away from corporate life and I all through this, I was not with anybody that was like this is the person I want to make babies with. That wasn't on the agenda. When I was in Sydney.
Speaker 2:I learned to meditate. I learned Vedic meditation and, as you know and I saw many of your listeners know that's a pivotal moment in your life because with that expansion of awareness comes the capacity to see things differently and to tune into your body and to really feel things differently. And that was the beginning, that was the absolute fundamentals of my conception journey. Actually, because, not knowing it explicitly, but that was setting me up for a very different path and it is fundamental. It is fundamental to me if I have someone says to me what did it take for you to conceive low e, a forty five. Of course you know meditation was the basis. So there I am, my career, I stop the change, I travel and I start training to be a meditation teacher.
Speaker 2:I moved to flag stuff. I was training one on one with my teacher for a year and a half and I came out of that and I went to India and that's when I met the Raju family, the dear, dear Raju family, and that's when I got introduced to a whole different understanding of what it means to purify every month as a woman. That sounds so fundamental and kind of obvious perhaps to you and to me now. But the Gillian of old didn't understand the deeper, expansive view of what it means to have your menstruation cycle every month. What is that? And I hear it all the time. You know it's kind of something to be sort of pushed away or to be suppressed in some way or to get rid of or, you know, to ignore on some level, when actually it's something to really embrace and it's a blessing.
Speaker 2:I always remember Dr Raju Senya Rajiji was a lecture about why do women on average live longer than men, and you know his first answer was because they have their period every month. They purify at that profound level in a way that men obviously don't do, and you know it was kind of like what. And so there was this understanding, there was this really big step change in my worldview around myself and my body and what was going on here. So you know it changed my whole way that I was taking care of myself, particularly Iovator. So that's the second aspect that came in to my life, that was fundamental in me conceiving when I did, and we can talk more about that. It's a great, great blessing to have learned meditation. It's great good fortune and great good fortune to have met the Raju family, who have a particular specialization in this area of fertility and they offer treatments that nobody else offers. And it was on that journey that I was able to have the good fortune of receiving treatments like the banana treatment that many people perhaps in Australia have had the good fortune or some have had the good fortune to receive. Or you can go I was going to India, to their clinic and having the Iovatic purification treatments of Panchakama, and I was having the banana treatment that only the Raju family are able to offer. And this is particularly important in terms of balancing the hormonal state and purifying the psychophysiology at that very deep level that no surgical intervention would ever be able to match.
Speaker 2:So you know then, that desire, that kernel of a desire that I wanted to be a mother was growing. And you know I was teaching meditation and I had met Michael, and that came to the forefront, you know, and it was a journey. It was a journey because you know I had had a pretty intense life back in my corporate days and you and I touched on this the other day, you know, when we were talking prior to recording this about my life then was really I spent half of it on a plane, you know. You know how fast it is from everywhere. My boss was in Connecticut, the head office was in Malmo, sweden. It was a global company. It was pretty groovy to get on a plane and go and have a meeting. We didn't have Zoom, we didn't have this kind of thing that you and I are doing now. So I flew a lot and, prior to meditation being in the mix, I know now just how tough that was on my monthly cycle, on my energy, on my balance, on my vata, on my everything.
Speaker 2:You know what did that do to my nervous system, along with being on the pill for some time and all of that, and probably, you know, just not understanding really how to take care of myself, particularly at certain times of the month. You know I would just plow on, I wouldn't stop and rest, I wouldn't eat differently, I wouldn't do all of these things that are. So that I learned over time with my growing knowledge of the Vedic knowledge. So you know it's, I had a number of miscarriages, but I had the sense. I had the sense that it would happen. But then I got to 45.
Speaker 2:I'll be honest with you and I don't tell many people this I got to 45 and I thought maybe it's not going to happen, maybe it's not, and I knew it wasn't going to happen through IVF. That just wasn't my thing and I know that works for many people and that's fantastic. It just wasn't something that felt charming for me. It was a personal thing and I thought, well, if it's not going to happen, actually maybe it's not. And so I got to 45 and I thought, okay, well, maybe you know and this is after me, having gone to India and done countless Panchakamas, but you know Dr Krishna and Rajuji always saying to me yes, yes, this and and I want to come back to a point in a moment, just about the mind and all of this but I kind of let go of it. And then it happened. I got, you know, we, we, I was pregnant at 45, you know we turned up at these doctors, you know that Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, and they like well, how did this happen, michael? I wouldn't do that, but you know, because it's, you know, I was in a certain category of, you know to conceived naturally at that age. That's not happening that often, so that puts you on a whole different track in terms of how they handle you. You know, you're a kind of a high risk kind of mum in that sense, but it was.
Speaker 2:It's that power of the mind, you know, it's that sense of it's, it's the mind what are you thinking?
Speaker 2:And that process of surrender which is so important in our life and, as you know, as somebody who's trained so closely with the Rajus, it's such an ultimate surrender, you know, you surrender to that knowledge and you surrender to something bigger than you and for all of us, that's when the real transformation can happen, because we're available for something in a completely different way. And I had to surrender to the timing of this. I had to surrender, you know, I wanted it to happen years before it happened. You know, we've been trying, for we've probably been trying for six years. I had to surrender to the when and the, you know, and it happened when it was meant to happen. But I had to let go of that tightness, that grippy kind of angsty feeling every time I then got my period, you know, or it was you know. People talk about the emotional roller coaster and I could not have done that without meditation. I don't think. I don't think because the mind is so strong, so powerful.
Speaker 1:So just for more clarification what age did you meet, Michael?
Speaker 2:I met Michael in 2005. Okay, and we? We weren't trying initially.
Speaker 1:So you were around 38, 37. Yeah yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:And that's when I was really starting to get into it with the Raju's, and you know there was work to do. The hormones were out of balance, my periods were regular, my periods were very, very heavy At certain times, prior to sort of starting to work with them.
Speaker 1:And yeah, knowing, that they would be like okay, here's a 37 year old woman who's just met a partner. We're gonna. First thing on their mind is fertility, because we want to be bringing more enlightened children in this world. And if someone is coming to us, especially traveling to a clinic in India from the West, they clearly are devoted and this woman's a meditator, so it's an opportunity to bring an enlightened being in the world. Let's get going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they don't muck around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's wonderful. So there's this beautiful balance, as you said, of surrender, which is a which is quite feminine. It's like, and it's very important in Aravetta in general, to surrender to the physician and to not think about your health and especially control it. That's a very masculine thing of control. I want this at this time, but then it's more okay, let the physician completely take care. I didn't even have to think about it, I didn't even have to plan and, as, as you said, jillian, as the Raju's really operate that way, they'll operate even with controlling people. But when the patient is surrendering to timelines and to treatments, it's such a beautiful thing for everyone, especially me.
Speaker 1:My experience as well, as we were on the journey One and a half years preconception. We weren't trying, but it because of COVID and things. It was about one and a half years before we we tried and that was also for me like we wanted to do it sooner but it was not even. It's like really more time, like don't you think we've done enough, but still it's. It's just that surrender and not have to think about time and I have to plan at all and fortunately and I've learned to, I wasn't always like this, but I've gotten to a stage where, whatever it is, if it's even, if it's just general things for my health, or general decisions which they're helping me make, if I just leave it to them, it's great. I don't have to, it's not on my mind, I don't have to plan.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think what they're teaching you is the fundamentals of of life, as you say, control as opposed to evolution, and what we learn and I see this I'm teaching a course of meditation this week. What am I teaching people? I was just talking to them about it yesterday Let go of control, you know, use close the eyes and whatever happens in that next 20 minutes sitting of meditation is not your business, it's nature's business, and I want to make the point that I think it's a really something that the Rajis have really taught me. It is not about surrendering control in order to abdicate responsibility to somebody else. It's not that. It is surrendering control full stop. That's where the sentence ends, because control is very tight and very constrictive and it doesn't allow for evolution to play out in the smoothest, most graceful, most evolutionary way. And we all are learning how to let go of control. That's the ultimate learning. And so conception and understanding that process, even understanding what conception is about, you know, okay, you just do the thing and you have a baby and da, da, da.
Speaker 2:But, as you've talked about, you know preparing for that and being in the right state for that, emotionally and physically and hormonally, on every level of the psychophysiology. That's a process and I didn't have that full knowledge, I didn't have that understanding and clearly I needed maybe I'm a slow learner, but I needed that. You know my body needed that. And it's also Michael. You know he was going and doing Panchakama. It's not just on the woman, you know it was him preparing as well, but it's I really want to make this point. There's this very interesting balance I'm surrendering and I'm trusting. I'm trusting in these people. Ultimately, what I'm doing is I'm trusting in universal intelligence to bring this about in the way that is most evolutionary for me and for everybody around me. And so I, when Loey came, I was the mother that I was meant to be, and Loey came when she was meant to come, and and, and it was only through me letting go, it was only through me trusting that process. And that took time. That takes time to learn to do that and you have to have the tools in your toolkit and the people around you and the knowledge to be able to truly do that.
Speaker 2:Of course, meditation, again, the ultimate and understanding and connecting with your body and your emotions and what's going on in your physiology. That's, you know, that is a journey. It's a journey and, I think, also not beating yourself up. You know I went through a period of kind of like oh, why had I done that, why did I go on the bill and why did I do this and why, why didn't I start earlier and have I left it too late?
Speaker 2:You know you can go down some pretty negating kind of rabbit holes. You know which, again, is the power of the mind. You know it takes you to a place that's absolute rubbish and it gets in the way of you. It's like you're going down the river but you sort of go off down a little tributary and you're like, oh no, no, come back, come back, get back in the river and go with the flow here and pay attention. But you go down one of those dark sort of tributaries and it's like geez, this is not, this is not good, you know, and you kind of have you come back and then off you go, and I did that many times, you know. And there again, we know consciousness. You know conceives the body, consciousness constructs the body, consciousness governs the body. So coming back to consciousness was my ultimate guide. And then the great fortune of having people around me Raju's principally, but many to give me that wisdom and I had to surrender. It was a big lesson for me. Ultimate lesson, I think, in letting go of control.
Speaker 1:So five, six years of trying obviously a lot of, I would imagine, assumes a lot of dark moments of like is that right? Like, was there a lot of? Oh my God, is this even worth it? I mean, was that happening a lot? Or?
Speaker 2:As you know, you know, going and doing Panchakama is not a walk in the park, you know. It's that process of going and the environment that you're in is also testing. It's testing one's deserving power, perhaps, or one's level of readiness, one's level of unbending intent. It's a very fine line. I found I have this intent, I have this vision, and I have not told many people this, but I did at one moment, and this might sound a little bit wacky for some, but I remember very clearly having this very clear, one could say vision. It was more than a thought, it was something I could see in the broadest sense of me sitting on a sofa breastfeeding a baby girl. I had it many years prior sitting on a sofa breastfeeding my baby.
Speaker 2:And I held that. I didn't tell anybody that and but then there I was, in this process of going to India and having this punch karma, sitting in a tub of herbalised form, and I was like you want me to do what you know like and all of these incredible herbs and all of this stuff I was doing. But actually, you know, I say that you want me to do, but I actually didn't question it, I just did it. You know, I sat in the tub and I did it every day for 28 days or whatever I did to do, no question, no question. I had this sense that, for whatever reason, this was what I was meant to be doing. But there were moments, like you know, is this going to happen?
Speaker 1:And, as I say, I got to a point, was like hmm, maybe not Maybe it's not, especially after you tried and then you didn't, and then you didn't and you got you, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I was miscarrying. I was having my miscarriages very. They were very early. They would, I would miscarriage and then boom, it would you know. And there was that sense of understanding and trusting, from the Ayurvedic perspective, that a miscarriage is nature's way of saying that this wasn't meant to be, something wasn't ready, something wasn't right. And you can understand that on an intellectual level, but when it happens it's different, it's a really emotional on every level.
Speaker 2:It's just such an intense thing whenever it happens, and that was a real, that was a real growth moment for me as a woman and as a human being and as a as walking the talk, you know, I teach people how to let go of control. I had to really learn that in a very deep way and through that process and perhaps that was part of it too. Perhaps that enables me to be the person I am today so I can offer that wise and trusted counsel, as I do in my work today. I do a lot of work with people on this whole fertility journey, from my perspective as a Vedic meditation teacher, but also as somebody who's been through it, and maybe that's part of it. You know, we never we can never know in the moment why something. We need to step back and get that wide angle lens and and you know, now sitting here talking to you and why are we having this conversation and really talking about this in a, in a personal way that I don't open up to, you know, to everybody.
Speaker 2:It's why, what's that about? Why? Why did Jillian go through that? What was that experience about? Well, on the, because there's something there that needs to be shared and and it was something for my personal growth and it was because Loey was meant to come when she came. You know and I know all that now in a different way but when you're in it, you know it's. It's a you've got to dig deep to be able to step back because you can get pulled in and you can get sucked into the micro and that's a really uncomfortable place to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I mean, when you're talking about the miscarriages, I can't. I can't empathize to that level. But with my clients and I'm sure it happened with you when we, when you miscarriage, of course there's what happens, happens, but also you need to purify and regenerate. It's not like you can try again next month. It's you got to, usually at least three to six months. We have to purify, remove that memory. It's like, oh, now I have extra work to do. That's how I feel as my clients.
Speaker 1:It's like oh, now I got to kind of do even more before I can do it again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you know, and you, you have to build up that, that nourishment in the placenta and all of that area in particular, and it's really about, you know, that revitalization and nourishment and and.
Speaker 2:But you know, I, it taught me so much and it certainly was a fast track in terms of Ayurveda, you know, I really I really was able to understand the power of that through living it and the kind of the rollercoaster that I was on, and so, in that sense, I know again, that's that was meant to be in that way, because I learned so much. I was, you know, I would go to India and I would be there. I was at a stage in my life where I could do that, but I could be there for three months and really surrender in a different way and really immerse myself. And I know that's not possible for everybody and it's not that I'm saying that that's necessarily necessary for everyone, but part of what that was about I can see now, is so that I can become more knowledgeable in this area, so that I can help other people In my role as a teacher. It's that's part of it as well. So, again, you know there's so many layers to this, so many layers.
Speaker 1:I have a question about the perseverance, because obviously over the five, six years there's that balance of perseverance doing what you got to do, doing what the doctor told you to do, the Vedya and doing I'm sure as well for you, with your age you'd have been doing a lot. You were receiving a lot, a lot of Punjikarmas, a lot of banana treatments and a lot of at home programs. How would you find that balance of doing that but without that kind of masculine kind of control of, okay, I gotta really do?
Speaker 2:it and then conceive.
Speaker 1:At this date it's ovulation time. Let's do it this day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I had. I was tracking my every day, I was taking my temperature and I was really getting in tune with my body and the cervical fluid and I was really. It was such a growth, you know, of understanding Of who I was on so many levels I was taking the recion as I was taking all of. I was absolutely on it with taking all of my Ayurvedic herbs that were prescribed. Of course, I was doing long meditation programs as a teacher. I was initiating, you know that was I was teaching people to meditate, I was eating, put a lot of attention on my diet.
Speaker 2:I was, you know, committed and you're right, I think this, having the unbending intent without being grippy and controlling, is a really it's. That is the key learning. So I had this sense of the goal and what I had to learn and I had to. I got this message driven home to me every month because I had my cycle, was letting go of the how and the when, you know, and so it was a very interesting learning experience because it was happening regularly that, okay, no, not now, not this month, not in this timing, you know, not in this place. It was. And yet holding the goal and holding that in that deep level. And then there's a surrender. I said what am I surrendering? I'm not surrendering the goal, but I'm surrendering the when and I'm surrendering how it's going to happen. And that's a very that schism, that, that, that sort of difference is really the subtle challenge with that and that's the learning. It's good to have goals, it's good to have that. I'm being intent.
Speaker 2:But how do you step back from that point of being so rigidly attached that you are actually getting in your own way? And this is the stuff of life. We have to be able to let go of the how and the when as other things, mainly the when, because we get very, very grippy and tight with time. And of course, you know, I could feel it every month and I was, I was not, you know, 25. So for me it felt the time thing was amplified because of my age. And you know, what I didn't do is I didn't read anything about what happens to women's, you know, egg production or whatever over the age of 35. I didn't, I didn't put any of that into my consciousness, I only put the stuff that I knew that was going to be nourishing for me. I was not interested in that.
Speaker 2:But if you, if you did kind of go down that track, you know you would, all you get in that environment is oh my God, time is ticking. Time is ticking, you know, and what is it happens then? More control and everything speeds up and the heart rates up and the blood everything's up and racy and excitary biochemistry in your body, everything is raising up with the complete opposite of what we need. I see it in my work. Now, you know, I'll have women come to me. They've tried IV. I have one woman I'm thinking of. She's tried IVF eight times and and it's becoming more desperate, more desperate. And then she came and she learned to meditate and she'd stopped. She gave up on the IVF three months later.
Speaker 1:Amazing.
Speaker 2:And that she puts that down to meditation. Of course she was. She wasn't so into the. You know you're doing anything specific around the IV, but just that she'd got to a point where she had to let go of the IVF it wasn't. And then there was another level of just surrendering all of that tightness and that that control on that and that imbalance in the system. Let go, let go, let go and surrender, surrender that deepest level and then, ok, nature says now we're ready which is ultimately going to manifest as a younger reproductive age.
Speaker 1:so the clock is the biology expressing itself.
Speaker 2:And I held that for myself. You know, because we think about age in such a limited way. You know, yes, I can say I've had 56 birthdays. How old am I? How old is Julian? Well, you know, I remember that when I was going through the whole medicalized sort of track of having a baby in the center of London, here, you know which I was, you know, trying to navigate very sort of you know, carefully, you are in this high risk category. You know I couldn't say to these doctors, you know it's okay, you know I'm not a normal. I want to say I wasn't, you know I'm not a normal. 45, you know, like I've been meditating for 20 something years. You know I knew in myself it's fine, it's fine, it's gonna be okay. Because I knew myself and there was that, you know, deeply ingrained sense well, you're this, you've had this many birthdays and time is ticking and certainly prior to conceiving, that was amplified for me and you know, with the Raju's, as you intimated.
Speaker 2:You know they kind of have that orientation as well. So there was a bit of that, you know, going on with it with me. I, you know they were saying like let's get moving with this. You know time is a ticking, so that is there. But you know, ultimately some level. We were time billionaires. Life is long and yet, you know, don't muck around, don't waste your time. You know time is your most precious resource and that's a balance. How do I hold that? At the same time, okay, I've got time, I don't want to control my way through this and yeah, I don't want to waste my time. You know, that's an interesting kind of learning just in itself.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. So I think I think that's great. I think that's the key. The key insight and key takeaway from this interview is essentially to sum it up in a short way is just letting go and surrender. And how do you do that? Well, I think the main ways you said today is meditation number one and there's so many lessons within that which naturally just comes about. You don't have to try surrender or try let go, it just naturally happens. And, of course, having a supportive physicians and supportive community and whoever you're working with on this journey that can help you remind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think also, the thing that I would add is I think the ultimate, the ultimate is to know yourself and trust yourself and to be able to tune in at that level, because we live in a world where there's so much information coming at us Some of it really crappy and you've really got to kind of find that place of trust and find those wise people and those people who are not carrying a lot of stress and the nervous system, and there are few and far between, and so that requires you to de-excite, it requires you to really tune in to your intuition and to have the tools in your toolkit that allow you to come back to yourself.
Speaker 2:And you are your ultimate guide and no matter how, what anybody else is saying, you have to trust your connection to the universal aspect of yourself, that bigger self, and that is so fundamental and that was what, for me, was so profound in my journey. What it was teaching me was to really trust not only in my individual, individualized self, but my universal aspect and trust myself. I was had the great good fortune of having wise and trusted counsel and I had my meditation, but that was the ultimate tool. Come back to who you are, because there's a lot of rubbish out there, there's a lot of stuff that's going to come at you. How do you pass all that out and stay true to yourself and know yourself in the midst of all of that kind of stuff that's out there and that noise?
Speaker 1:I so appreciate that. I'm so glad you mentioned it. I was going to say just through life experience as well, and that's what you get. When I mean life experience, it is that self referral. How strong is that? And it just continues. And I love how you mentioned that, because especially in this industry, in the preconception, if you're going through see various practitioners and doctors and IVF clinics and as well the birthing industry, and then that's so important to just listen to your heart.
Speaker 2:And even, dare I say it, the IVF industry. You know that if you go down and we drill down even more, there's a lot of stuff out there called IVF that ain't IVF. So it's even at that level when you're kind of getting closer and closer, but still it's very murky. So ultimately I come back to trust myself and don't read too much about from you. Know who wrote that book? Are they enlightened? Are they happy? Are they carrying a lot of stress in their nervous system?
Speaker 2:You know certainly once you have a baby and you know there's how many. How many books are there out in the market about what to do with your baby or your toddler and your? I'm like I don't. I mean, I know there's all thousands and thousands. And what do you need? You need to trust yourself and your connection with your mind and your body and your baby. And you know, half of these books are more than half are written by stressy, controlling people. You know, like, what's that going to do for you?
Speaker 1:Oh, it's really valuable. I think it's really valuable for people. So, to end off, if people want to learn more about you, you speak a lot, but you've also you teach meditation in New York and London. So, London Meditation Center, new York Meditation Center. London Meditation Center also hosts the Rajas basically once a year or so or regularly. So if you want to, experience Ayurvedic treatment and banana treatment through them. You can do that through London Meditation Center. Definitely worth signing up to the newsletter to be informed about that because it's a rare.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Reach out to me through Londonmeditationcentercom. Go to the website and send me a message and say you know I've heard this and I just want to stay in touch. On there you'll see my book why Meditate? Because it works.
Speaker 1:I've just asked about that. Tell us about how that went, because I saw that released. Was it 2021? I think a couple years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, july 21. I was approached by the publisher just prior to the pandemic and so then lockdown happened and I wasn't teaching because, as you know, we can only teach Vedic meditation in person. We were doing a lot with our community online, but not teaching online, as we never do, and so it created some space for me amongst homeschooling Lowi to be able to write and it came out very quickly and it's something I had wanted to do for a long time, but you know, the timing wasn't supporting that because you know, I had a baby and all of that. But it's been wonderful, it's been a wonderful experience.
Speaker 2:And the report you know we have so many people coming to learn having read the book because there are so many things, as you know, just there's so many different types of things out there called meditation that are not meditation, you know.
Speaker 2:So this is very much a why meditate it. You can't, obviously, read this book and learn how, but it was really about why are we going to sit around with our eyes closed and what does that actually mean and what are the benefits and how is this going to impact our stress and, you know, our creativity and our aging and sleep and all of these things and I've done it very purpose. It was very interesting experience because I did it with all women that supported me who were all meditators, so my the cover designer, the illustrator, you know, the woman who my publisher learned to meditate. You know, it was just this fantastic kind of project that everybody was sort of on that level with and I think that kind of shows through a little bit and what has come out. So meditators love it and non meditators are really finding it.
Speaker 2:I think quite helpful so yeah, there's that and there's a number of talks that I've done one recently that a people. Maybe I can send you the link for that and then you can share that which is being more of a broader sense around experiencing, being and then moving out into action, which I think is so, so important. But yeah, london Meditation Center dot com Find me there.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right. Thank you, jillian.
Speaker 2:Such a pleasure. Dylan, thank you for all of your work and all of this. You know these deep dives and these sharing and making this so relatable and personal. It's we need more of this in the world. Oh, thank you for opening up.
Speaker 1:I know it's very special and yeah, it's a it's a it requires us to dig something a bit deep, go a bit deeper in our heart, to have a conversation like this.
Speaker 2:So thank you. Yeah, such a pleasure, jgude.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoyed that. I hope you're inspired. I hope it supports you on your journey or if you're helping others on their journey. It is extremely common and I guarantee you you know someone or will know someone if it's not yourself struggling to conceive. So share that with friends, share this podcast around and really appreciate that. Leave a review, subscribe. Check out the other podcasts we have on fertility and other fertility stories. More will be coming from all walks of life, different little nuggets of wisdom and inspiration. If you want to book a health consultation with myself, where really we're working more and more with fertility, more than ever, you can visit vitalbetacomau. Forward slash bookings Until next time. Much love.