Hello and welcome to everyone listening. Thanks so much for tuning in to this special episode and interview. I'm so excited to introduce you to my guest today. Jeevan saying is a somatic womb and pelvic healer integrative mental health practitioner herbalist and guide as a Visionary and wound keeper jeevan guides women and folks with vaginas back into the sanctuaries of their bodies to reclaim their Birthright of aliveness andAnd in today's episode we talked about the power of the pelvic bowl and the potential of language and embodiment for personal and Collective healing jeevan talks about her journey from trauma to Awakening on her life's path as a somatic woman pelvic healer and integrative mental health care practitioner. She shares some of how she facilitates awareness and supports clients and healing and empowerment. We talked about babes and babli - and how to support and strengthen our babe energy in the world. And of course we chat about astrology and some of of the placements in jeevan's chart as they relate to her work and Gifts in the world. If you enjoyed this conversation, you might also be interested in working with G even more directly check out her offering the embodied babe membership. This is an annual membership that invites you to explore the world of pelvic Wellness menstrual cycle magic embodiment and seasonal well-being month-by-month jeevan guides you into the energetics of the Season connecting it back to your body and pelvic Bowl members get access to a monthly live call with jeevan a monthly. Of care practice pre-recorded classes by expert healers and doctors in the field sharing skills and knowledge access to the course library and access to a members-only Facebook group. This is a community that celebrates the beauty inherent in all shapes and sizes of bodies and is open to anyone who identifies as a woman from non-binary transgender queer gender fluid and gender non-conforming person who wants to learn more about their womb and pelvic intelligence and exciting news for you embodied astrology. Listeners receive a 25% off discount on their membership with the special code Astro babes. That's all caps astr Oba Bes. This discounted rate is on offer from now until September 1st, and you can find the sign up link in my show notes or from jeevan's website. Jeevan, thank you so much for coming over today. Thank you very much excited to be here. Yeah, I'm really excited about it, too. I feel like we've been talking about having this conversation for at least eight months or something. Yeah, I'd say so yeah, you were just mentioning. We're coming up on our 10-year anniversary of knowing each other and another time that I interviewed you. Yeah, it was actually a really formative time in my life. I was actually just Stu writing about this for a little written interview that I was doing that is it okay if I share a little bit of a story around it? Okay, the question in the interview was around like yeah what my own self-care rituals have been and how I started doing self-care and and I was thinking back and I'm like, you know, honestly I didn't have enough self value or self. Forth until I started doing yoga and my late 20s to really like care for tend to my body and as a mixed race South Asian person had kind of written off yoga for many years until an Indian Uncle told me that I should do yoga and chant om every day and I was like, okay, I'm gonna try this and so I found people's yoga. And you were one of my first two yoga instructors as I like learned for the first time being with my body in that way and through that process. I became like both more in my body and also just felt really strong. And so I remember you interviewing me and it being just yeah yoga being this kind of Gateway for me into this world of healing and of taking care of my body. Yeah. Yeah that was during the time. I was doing some community outreach for our studio and we had that project like the people of people's yoga and I think you were one of the first people that I interviewed and you're definitely one of my favorite students. I remember that I would always just you come into class and have this big smile on your face. You almost have sweet and really engaged and so present. Thank you. I love Going to your classes. They kicked my butt and and also like gave me so much gave me language around my body that I've never had before and I also just really appreciated your sensitivity and a time in Portland when there weren't a lot of yoga instructors aware of like race in their room and where people might be coming from I always like really felt to your awareness and presents and so I appreciate that. Thank you. You hear ya. So what have you been doing for the last 10 years? So yeah, I would say that time of my life almost a decade ago was really this opening and actually we didn't look at this part of my chart but my Saturn return was starting a little bit early, I guess at that time and it really was a time of stepping into myself as a Healer. As somebody who wants to facilitate healing for people and so during that time I had been had been booked bookmarked by getting held up at gunpoint two times and then also being in a rollover accident that really, you know, I consider that accident and that whole period in my life as the universe like picking me up off the tracks that I was on and then placing me on the track. Ex that I am not on now. Yeah, and that wherever I was going it wasn't that I was going like the wrong way or doing the wrong thing, but it was I wasn't really in alignment with my life's purpose and through the series of traumatic events. It was like allowed me to really come into myself in a whole new way and really question like what am I here to do in this lifetime and so one? And I'd always said was that I wanted to be a natural medicine doctor. My next lifetime for that. I wasn't like smart enough this lifetime again kind of some of the like low self-esteem pieces coming up. And so after those accidents I was like there is no other lifetime in this body. This is my life. And so I feel like I started a second Lifetime well and applied. Two Chinese medicine school and got into their doctoral program and did six years of a doctored and East Asian medicine and then a master's and integrative mental health, which has a strong like trauma-informed piece is really founded on any modality called hakone which is a mindfulness-based psychotherapeutic modality. And so I bring both have We into the work that I do those traditional medicine piece. And then also this piece of embodiment and a looking at the map of the body and how we can heal through the body. Wow. Okay. I just want to pause for a second because I'm remembering that time about I guess it was a little after we'd met and you were a musician still are an artist and I hadn't seen you for a couple of years I think and then I remember running into again and really feeling that there had been a very big transition. So I wanted to recall that and honor the Turning Point around your Saturn return and I'm looking at your chart right now and seeing that you have Saturn in the early degrees of Scorpio and we had been talking a couple minutes ago about your chart and I had said that Saturn is an alchemist. That it's kind of lard of or goddess of old medicine and you're born in 1983. And that was the year that Saturn and Pluto were conjunct and they're coming back into a conjunction again next year and it feels like such an important Turning Point as you began at Saturn return that you really pivoted to go on this path and so much about transformation and healing which is the essence of Scorpio. So and then so we've been doing this study in East Asian medicine and integrative mental health, but your work is so largely focused on womb healing. Is that correct? Yes it out. Right? Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about what like how how your work is coming about what it is and how these two elements of East Asian medicine and integrated mental health come in. Yeah, absolutely and And you know when I think back I and when people ask me this question, I can't really think of like a single point of like aha that I'm going to be a somatic womb and pelvic healer, but I look at the scope of my life and I always you know whenever I'm sharing about my work or myself. I like to share where I come from to give a little bit of context so Dad was an undocumented immigrant from India and then my mom grew up in the projects as a light-skinned Ecuadorian and Puerto Rican woman and they met in New York City in the early 80s and then had me and so you can imagine that like somebody coming from Southeast Asia who like in my experience India. I've experienced a lot of sexual repression and oppression of women. And people who are not like a cisgendered male and so and then my mom growing up Catholic and going to Catholic School her whole life. And so I was born into a household that there's a lot of Shame around our sexuality a lot of Shame around our bodies. I remember being one of the first kids in my class to get their periods and seeing my breasts start to develop and You're really ashamed and my dad even taking me clothes shopping and buying like extra large clothes for me. And so just to like hide my body that was starting to develop and so when I look at where I come from and both the explicit and implicit messages around being in my body and being a woman and being somebody with a vagina. That I just think there's always been this piece in me that wants to like not live that way. Yeah doesn't believe in that story. Yeah. How does that relate with what you were talking about before in your twenties of having low self-esteem and low self worth? Oh my God, that's getting question. Good question. My name is a really really good question. Yeah, it looked a lot like during that time kind of treating my body as a sort of receptacle for both enter my own energy and other people's energies that didn't belong there and I think that's so common for people who were many of us who that our bodies weren't valued either by Society or our families or we experienced any sort of abuse that there is this kind of internal like loathing system that was happening. And and yeah that looked like just a lot of a lot of ways that I didn't tend to my body or that I even harmed my body. And so when I talk about self-care and tending to ourselves and like doing healing as that our own healing as healing the collective, I really really like for me it really is radical work. Because yeah, it's so easy for me. I have like completely disregarded my body in the past. And so it's been a process of reclaiming. Yeah, and then helping other people do that. Yeah. So you mentioned that these turning points are on experiencing some pretty significant trauma. We're a big pivot point for you. What did that look like in the context of Of like your self-healing and your your self-worth how did that start to happen or do you remember like first thoughts or perceptions? And totally you know what? I actually I do remember so I was living in Spain for a couple of years before I came back to Portland and teaching English and I was at my lowest low and I just remember like going out with friends and like drinking and then like crying in the streets walking home. At Sunrise and so that's a little like before picture and then coming back to Portland and having the first gunpoint incident happen and having this like I need something needs to shift. Like this does not feel good to like be in my life in this way that feels checked out that feels like purposeless, but just like doesn't feel good anymore. And so I found I was looking for a counselor and I was bent on Having a woman of color and that it had to be a woman and I ended up finding somebody who has a white man, who is amazing and he did it was my first time ever doing somatic therapy ever. Like I had been to a different therapist. I had never gotten that much out of talk therapy. It just felt like repeat repeating my story over and over. Again, and he was the first one for the first few months. I feel like our sessions would just be me going in crying and him swaddling me and blankets and like rocking me like a baby. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that's so beautiful that such strong feminine energy comes through him and hold you there. Yeah. He really is embodies both really beautifully. And yeah, so I would say that was part of that transition time of coming into my own like salt forth and my own body and also starting to get curious about healing. Yeah. They're my own healing. Yeah. Yeah. And so now you have this really Exquisite body of work that you offer. Can you talk a little bit about it? What it is that you do? Yes, so I've been doing homework for the last four years, but Really the last year and a half that I've had language and the term around what I do, so I call the work somatic womb and pelvic healing because it's really about coming back into our bodies as being sanctuaries and that we primarily do that through the pelvic Bowl the reason for me and why I sent her my work around the pelvic bowl is because it's the foundation of our whole energy. Genetic body and so if there's not a strong root there, it's hard to build upon that and yeah, I can share now or later about what the pelvic Bowl means to me. But I really see it as both a physical place but also a metaphor or a lot. Let's go there. I want to hear all about it. Okay. Yeah. I really see the pelvic Bowl as being a place of not Just creativity and sensuality but also of our power and our safety and we can't in order to be sensual and order to be creative. We need to feel safe. And so if that place is cut off if we don't feel safe Even in our own bodies, it's really hard to to move right we have could we back up and get really fundamental for? A sec. Oh, totally. What is the pelvic Bowl? Hmm such a good question. So I consider the pelvic Bowl anatomically anything between the pubic bone and front and the sacrum and back and the hips and then all our reproductive organs and our bladder. So our uterus and our cervix and our vaginas and involve us and uterine tubes. The word fallopian was a Clear like band's name. And so I like the term uterine tube and our ovaries and prostate for some folks and Enos which often gets left out of the yeah conversation and our whole pelvic floor. And so that whole region. Yeah below our belly buttons and 360°. I called out the public pool. Okay? Yeah, what does that part of the body has to do with creativity? T yeah, I think traditionally people think that for women and for people with uteruses that you know, we have this very tangible potential for creating life and so that got connected to this place, but I see it as any I see fertility as being all-encompassing and not just our ability to conceive a human life, but also Term like have dreams that also like have visions that we want to carry out in the world to be like rooted into the Earth and then pull from that energy to create so that we're not it's not just us we become channels and that way and so when we talk about creativity, I think about imagination. I think it was vessel vendor called who wrote the body keeps the score. Who talked about that one of the main kind of tragic outcomes of trauma and particularly PTSD is a person's a person losing their ability to imagine. Mmm. And so there's even not the thought of like life can be better or I can feel better because we need the imagination to think of another way of being and he sees that as like, one of the yeah, one of the like biggest biggest things that we need to address as healers is allowing people to have an imagination again, and so so I see creativity and Imagination as being really intimately connected and that if somebody's had any injury to their pelvic bowls or to their sexuality or sensuality or Or ability to feel rooted in their bodies, then their creativity is going to suffer. Yeah that makes so much sense to me and I really enjoy hearing you talk about it. I think about our bodies a lot and embodiment and the relationship of the kind of pelvic region the sacral chakra and Scorpio rulership in the body to sustenance and security and so I'm enjoying a lot higher putting language to that and I'm wondering how you work with helping people reconnect if there has been trauma and we when we were meeting kind of before we started recording you were saying something that actually I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about now, which is that this part of the body is so disconnected for so many people and then it Especially anybody who's born into patriarchy, can you talk about like what do you mean by that and how does it show up for people? Like how do you see it in clients? Or how do you feel it? Mmm-hmm? Yes. This is something that really a few months ago. I was sitting with like why is this all-pervasive this disconnect from our pelvic bowls? Why is it that menstruation is seen as dirty and so many different major religions. Yeah, and I was like, oh, yeah patriarchy patriarchy that is so that is ubiquitous and has touched most places in the world and and in order for patriarchy to survive and needs to cut off the power line the like power cord of anybody that could be a threat to it and who could be a threat to Key women and people with vaginas and really anybody in a marginalized body. So I also think you know in this people who have experienced colonization is also being potentially cut off and so I have seen this to show up in my practice as yeah of people, you know, I often lead like body scans for people, especially one of the first visits because it's not just a body scan. It's also helping me to map where their awareness is able to go and I can't tell you how many people that as we approach their belly button and even higher up there's just like a disconnected like suddenly they go offline and that might look like I can't feel my genitals or I can't like or I'm like suddenly in my mind thinking thoughts or sometimes strong and Something's come up. Yeah, and I'm thinking about what we were just talking about is this being a seat of creativity and power and the interest in keeping a lot of people chronically disempowered and and not able to access creativity. Yes. I'm just like yes and we're seeing right now with these laws going into effect in these places the abortion the unfortunate events. Yes that To me is like, oh my gosh. We need this now more than ever the knowledge that we actually can chart our own cycles and no one were fertile or not. And that that information is a threat to the government's to pharmaceutical companies, right because they make a lot about the birth control pill and other birth control means it's a huge set and yet we never learned that From school because our bodies are considered scary cuz I really could get pregnant and I don't know how many people who are listening or if you even Renee remember being a teenager and I just remember them talking about pregnancy like this really scary thing. That's your fault that you could get pregnant at any time of the month and I already likes eating these the sphere around the power of our bodies. Oh, yeah, you know I was really fortunate to have a pretty hardcore feminist for a mom. And when I started bleeding, she had a ceremony for me. I remember she bought me this red rose candle and invited all of her women friends over. I know it's very sweet. It's very sweet to think of it. Now. I was totally ashamed when it happened. I started bleeding kind of young at 12 and Had a lot of gender ambivalence. I was not stoked to be female and was pretty reluctant to think of myself as a woman. And so that I remember kind of feeling a little traumatized by her by her ceremony, but now feeling so grateful that she gave me a lot of information but in school, I was always the person that knew and so I would share it with a lot of friends, you know, I was always the person that knew Ooh about sex. I was always a person that knew about drugs about the ovulation method and stuff like that is just information. I got imagining other other people's parents and hey friends were schoolmates were allowed to hang out with me because of the information that I shared but that actually seems like one of the So this question of how do you help people reconnect to this part of their body using body scans just basic body awareness right like invitation to feel but then information your teaching people really important and very practical skills. Yeah, and and the work that I do that I recommend doing with with somebody else because it can easily kind of tip over into Sometimes a trauma response for people but I kind of Walk The Edge with people in terms of like okay, so you notice that you get cut off right around your belly button. Let's go ahead and notice what happens in mindfulness when we like go up together right right to that edge where you start things getting start getting a little fuzzy unless like hang out there and see what happens and so I really consider the work that I do the work that my clients do as a kind of edge walking and at that edge they get to start to to create new neural Pathways new energy Pathways that say this is safe. I belong here. I have a right to be here. I get to take up space here. I get to grieve this I got to move. Move this I get to celebrate this and so it's really really rich work and it looks so different for each person. Yeah, but the mindfulness peace and and yeah tuning in it was really important piece. One thing that you mentioned a lot on your website is gender-inclusive a tea. How does that work with this with wound healing and reconnection the pelvic floor and really coming from Place that I feel like correct me if I'm wrong to say, I think you're a womanist. Yeah. Yeah, totally I have well as somebody who's married to someone who identifies as non-binary and my younger brother is trans. I feel like yeah, there's like Fierce commitment to making this work accessible. To anybody who has a vagina whether or not they call it a vagina and so if I have somebody who is in my practice who comes in and they don't identify as a woman. I like to ask them. Like, how can I talk about your body parts? How can we how can I like, you know call you and call your body and names that feel affirming to you and that feel empowering to you and sometimes that's something that we get to learn. Together. Yeah, and a lot of permission is such a strong focus in the work that I do and then also helping people to start to ask permission of their own bodies while they engage with their bodies and I think especially for folks who yeah who've just been kind of like falling through the cracks of the medical system and through society and off. Often like don't often encounter kind of disrespect. It can be very empowering. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I imagine just having the question of how can I talk to your body? What are the words that we can use? Yeah as being probably the first time maybe a lot of folks have even been had that question raised with them and what a powerful question absolutely and also I do so many Allergies that I think there's like within my work that range from doing something as intimate as internal pelvic floor work that's intravaginal to doing pelvic schemes where it's like zero touch on my part and so to doing like external body work. And so I think that that also helps to meet people where they are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, this kind of piece around language and also locating that so many of us. I mean even me being raised with a feminist, you know, just not having language for my body or for Sensations in my body of her desire and when there is not language, it's such an isolating experience, maybe even definitely isolating and relationship, but also isolating from myself like I have a ham having an Manson I don't have language. I can't talk about it. Maybe it's not real doubting my own experience or doubting the validity of my experience. It seems like the the ways that you're able to approach people. It's like they can start to develop an internal map and maybe use locating or describing sensation or things that are coming up emotionally and then that can become the Lexicon for you to meet each other. Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that. Yes, that's such a beautiful way of describing the work that I do and I agree and I kind of Loops back to like the importance of the pelvic bowl that I really think that you know, there's such a kind of mirroring between our throat chakras and I would like pelvics first and second chakras and that is who we are in our power. Able to voice that and so I love that you're touching on the power of being able to put words to our experience and then I'll just say briefly that from like a kind of somatic nervous system perspective when we're able to put words to it or experience. We're hanging out at our prefrontal cortex. And so that's helping to bring out of our subconscious into our consciousness. So awareness something that we might have not had before and that's where the real shift start to happen people and who are healing? Yeah. That's yeah, that's beautiful. Thanks for saying that. It feels like such a direct link back into power to be able to have conscious awareness of something and put language around it because after that we can talk to each other we can be validated in our experiences. We can organized and yes. Yeah, and thinking of how many of us come from cultures from Generations from thousands of years of having our voices cut off. Yeah. Yeah. Just another note about your astrology chart. I will keep glancing over at it. Jeevan is a Leo Rising which means that Taurus is in the 10th house and the 10th house and a western chart is the place of career in Public Image or vocation not always the same as career, but it's calling and Link what you're putting out into the world and Taurus is in the axis with Scorpio. And so Taurus and Scorpio rule the gates of the the throat and the voice and the pelvic region respectively and their relationship to each other and you have a generational placement, which is Chiron and tourists a couple of years that Chiron was moving through that sign and Chiron is Often called the wounded healer and so it's like how do we transmute the pain and suffering or the wound patterns that we've inherited into our gifts and I love just seeing Chiron up there in your tents and Taurus and of course this year you're honest moved into Taurus. And so the next seven years are going to be I hope an amplification of your message and the kind of continued liberation of this work and I'm putting more words and visibility around it. Oh my gosh him Goosebumps are in the hay excited. One thing I was thinking about when just a minute ago. We were talking about language is how much trauma comes out of the Western Medical system may be other Medical Systems to where there's not language in earlier. We are having a discussion talking about our Various experiences either personally or through our friends and loved ones having encounters with Western doctors where their bodies weren't. I mean we're respected there was no consent. Maybe there was an informed consent there wasn't information around side effects for really important procedures. We were talking about some of the more common procedures a particular procedure around like removing abnormal cell growth from the cervix. It's called the Leep procedure and that this particular the procedure is done a lot and the potential side effects of it include loss of libido loss of sexual sensation and pleasure and also loss of Happiness. I'm I was thinking about what you were talking about with vessel Van Der kolk in this, you know, being able to connect to our imagination and creativity. And so I know someone who recently went through this procedure and there was no Saint or information about these side effects before they had it and just just the trauma of that on top of the procedure was astounding because it's so violating. Yes. How how have you experienced this in your work? Do you work with a lot of people who are coming to you from a western system looking for something else? I would say most people. Yeah, and yes, I just just want a name that that's such sadly is such a common experience that I hear of people going to a Western Medical setting seeking support and then coming out traumatized from it. Yeah, and you know as a natural medical provider, I I don't I think there are certain aspects of Western medicine and I'm grateful for that I can save I've seen you know, and there's this huge piece that to me is perpetuating that very like patriarchal model of approaching the human body right of like power over instead of like lifting someone up in their power using that as like, okay leverage to to Really Empower patients. And so yes, that is sadly. Yes. I've had people come in who specifically want to heal not because of any sexual trauma that's happened or birth trauma, but specifically trauma due to medical procedures or interactions something that I'm really appreciating hearing about how you're working with people is an approach to Healing this participatory and what I'm hearing is that You're giving people tools to connect and build relationships with their own body and their healing process, which is not a pathologizing approach which seems to be the foundation of Western medicine is to make something wrong and address the symptom rather than the whole organism as a organism. That's primarily healthy actually and can you talk a little bit about anything that that just sparked for you? Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes, I thought It is absolutely yeah my intention in this work and I often tell my clients and my students that as we take a step towards the wound. We also are going to take a step towards the resource. And so that might look like we're can you feel Comfort right now in your body? Where do you feel pleasure? I keep like a really nice little set. The hand wrap it for the sheepskin rug and things that feel really good in my office to help also work not just on not just on trying to heal what's wrong quote-unquote that also trying to really bolster and strengthen what's already there? Because our bodies already know our bodies are so wise and all we need is just a little nudge. A little listening to really set in motion the healing. Yeah, that's such a wonderful Chiron statement like a step towards the wounds and step towards the healing. I love that. Can you talk a little bit about some of these approaches that you take with people that feel very empowering like this this work that you do around body Oracle. Jeevan has an online class called body Oracle. What is that the body or class? Yeah, and so You know most of the work I interview I would say comes out of my own healing and then working with other people and then pulling from all these different streams of knowledge that I've studied and practiced and so body Oracle is the class all about practicing embodiment with this focus of finding our inner yeses and inner knows which I think is such an important. Inch practice right now. That's why having conversations around consent as things are coming up in the media like every day around people people feeling violated that we that we start to gauge. Like, what is the yes, what is the no because we can't speak our yeses and NOS if we don't really know what they are. What is that process look like, how do we find a yes or no on our bodies? Yeah, and so in body Oracle, I guide people first. I give kind of a overview of the nervous system and really talk about like our fight flight freeze and a piece responses and talk about ways that energy may or may not move in our bodies and start to get people reflecting on like oh, what a what do I tend to do where it is? My energy tends to go and then I Invite people into a few mindfulness exercises where they recall and experience and for the no experience. It's a very it's a like a salt light snow. So it's not like a majorly traumatic experience, but an experience where they like felt no and then we start to check out like what was that? How does that show up in your body? And then we start to play with it. And so Hissing like can I can I increase the volume on that like could I turn it down? And so it becomes this somatic practice and exploration that we do together. It's been really cool Renee people. I even have people now that I taught this class lives in January and they're like my body Oracle like now tells me yeah, like what's up? To go for yeah, and so it's so cool to see how just like that simple tool of tuning in can inform all areas of our lives and I think there's like deeper layers to go but body Oracle I should call it intro to body Oracle exists just the first steps in that right and you're about to start a second step or second part of this program. Is that right? Yeah. I am calling it be Are we launching an embodied steaming course? Mmm? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well you tell us about that next week. Yeah looks totally body Oracle 2.0 will be coming to I pick up some point. Okay? Yeah, okay, but for the time being the body Oracle class is available as an online program people can take and I was just checking out this morning. I think I'm going to do it looks really accessible and affordable and Amazing and then what is pelvic steaming tell me all about that. Yeah, pelvic steaming is a traditional healing practice that actually comes from so many places in the world. I learned it from a teacher and Central America, but it's practiced. Yeah and like at least 40 or 50 different countries around the world and it is is traditionally it was a practiced on postpartum. So like a practice done by midwives or like facilitated by midwives for people postpartum to help heal tissues, but also like the spirit of people who have given birth and so a pelvic steam is using it's basically making a tea out of plants and then sitting over it and some call it a sauna for your vagina. Again, esteem. Yeah, we've been having these really beautiful stools on her website that know like you put the the tee underneath and it's like comes up through this opening. Yes, like like great. Yeah and people don't even need a steam still they can like go into a child's pose and hover. Okay, it's really great to get a little bit of support when you're beginning sir is the possibility of burn which we never wants. Right right. I was thinking Would be a good use for yoga blocks. That's a great idea. You mentioned before that you approach pelvic steaming as a somatic practice. Can you talk about that? Yeah, so there are a few different pelvic steam classes out there right now and they're wonderful and they really approach steaming as like a physical practice that treats physical symptoms like endometriosis and fibroids and cysts. Pelvic pain and so I definitely bring that into my teaching but the focus is around starting to bring some sensation. So that pelvic floor where there may have been. Yeah, there may have been some wounding or for people who don't feel connected with their genitals. They may feel like this is not a place that I want to be in steaming as a super gentle and non-invasive way to start connecting to this place in our bodies. Yeah. Yeah to just go back for a second to all of your various modalities. So you're working with people quite therapeutically through talk and embodied awareness and and then through pelvic steaming and then you also work with holistic pelvic care as well. Would you share what that is? Yeah holistic. Hope it carries the modalities started by Tammy Kent who is a physical therapist based in Portland. And basically she founded this because she was in school and learned just a little bit of pelvic internal pelvic floor work and realized that it was completely missing from the rest of her curriculum and yet it was so this work was so important. And again as we were talking about like the disconnect from our pelvic bowls, we see this in medicine to write that it becomes a place that's pathologize door not really given like enough attention to so so holistic pelvic care works by intravaginally and you can do it in an energetic work externally moving mapping out the pelvic floor. And then helping to release any areas of tension or holding Mmm Yeah, it's amazing work. So you work with these modalities and then you're teaching as well and you offer coaching and various different classes and one-on-one appointments and along with the pelvic steaming and body Oracle work. I was really drawn to this series called the embodied babe that right and body. A baby, yeah. Mmm. Yeah. Mmm. Yeah, so excited, you know, somebody who studied acupuncture. I'm like, how do I do this work? How do I take this work? Like Beyond just my office and be able to provide healing to people everywhere. So I started the embodied behave coaching series which was a series of twelve sessions were which is So we founded on embodiment work the invited be coaching series is a series of really coming into our bodies. It's all about. Yeah what it says embodiment. And the reason I called it embodied babe. Let's say I wanted to make it a little more gender inclusive and it's and To me of the power behind embodiment and I'll keep coming back to this is that for us to really be empowered? We have to be in our bodies. And so the embodiment coaching is a way of returning to our bodies as safe and as vessels for creativity and vessels of voice and and having relationships that feel healthier. For me the word babe is such a celebratory term and when I call my friends babe, it's like full of love and tenderness and appreciation for their creativity their sexuality their like attraction attractiveness. And when I was looking at the description for this coaching series, I was thinking about the times when I've been really comfortable calling myself a babe which Doesn't happen that often and I'm wondering like in this process that you're going through with people. What like what do you think about being a babe and like what does that mean? And how do you coach people in that process? Yeah. Well, first of all, you're a total of eight RNA we were talking about with starting to bleed and Pretty and stuff. I think sexuality and like feeling myself as being a somewhat androgynous person, you know feeling myself kind of in that awareness in a social context has always felt a little inaccessible. Like I don't see I see more and more people that I can relate with kind of claiming their Badness there babe leanness, but for a long time, it's felt like oh that That word doesn't apply I don't get that. Oh totally can relate to and I'm thinking yeah for so much of my adolescence like not even feeling like a woman and feeling I mean, yeah, even like eating lunch by myself and seeing like popular people and feeling very very separate from that, which is also been a process of Of like how much and by is also like internalized misogyny or you know rejecting rejecting some piece of myself. So it's been an interesting process for me. But but I would say yeah not feeling like a babe for so much of my life and really feeling like that's other and that you had to me the word babe, which can apply to anybody. I love it as a As a word that's like all-inclusive is somebody who feels at home in their bodies Mmm Yeah, and that that confidence. I'm like a real. I'm like, I don't know if this is in my chart, but I feel like I can really like see through the bullshit really easily with people in your chart. Okay. It's like the moment I meet somebody I can sense work who like what's going on and there's something that I Like fake confidence and something. I saw a lot of my 20 years of like this like fake it until you make it and I can see through that so easily and I can also see when somebody's confidence is like so rooted in their own journey of coming into themselves and being with themselves in a friendly way and that doesn't mean you know with the embodied babe is somebody who's committed to returning going to themselves over and over and over again. It doesn't mean it happens every day. Right doesn't mean there aren't days of like I just don't feel good today. Yeah, but that commitment peace and the the confidence that's like a real confidence that comes from being at home of themself. Yeah. Yeah what I'm hearing and that is bringing me back to not quite sure when it was a couple of minutes ago and you were mentioning working. trauma working with like the dissociative patterns fight flight freeze and then I heard you include appease and I was thinking about the appeasing part as a method of distraction for our bodies and that's such a strong message in lesson that I've been given as a female person is to be pleasing and I think that is the biggest barrier for me when I think about owning the word babe or identifying with that is an external eyes dyed idea of what that should be or what that looks like. In your coaching series. Is there any way to talk about like what does this journey look like for folks or what are some experiences you've had as a facilitator practitioner going through them? Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I can say that my clients when they come are coming for a reason and that's usually them being aware that they feel disconnected on some level and along with that. Empowered they're in relationships or family relationships or careers that don't feel fulfilling to them. Maybe they're just even their relationship to their own body feels like it's depleting and so really working like I named to for going towards towards that with curiosity and with Iceland has caught body magic that you can call it mindfulness. And and then weaving in these self care practices to start to build up muscle of like touching one's self and of being with oneself and and by no means I'm like all about looking at everything that's there and I see it as a strength, but I know some people are sometimes overwhelmed. So I've had I've learned to like take a few steps back and be like, okay, we won't jump into the void will just like put a tote. together but they have like standing there with people and allowing them to see what comes up and then the start to move it move it and so I've seen huge Transformations happen with my clients and it's been just a few months of going from being like sexually cut off and in an unhappy relationship to being like Oh my gosh, like I am like we broke up it was like so good and loving and I'm like feeling like so in my body in this way, I've never felt and I like know what I want and what I like. Oh, I'm gonna go like try this new career path that I've always wanted to do. And so I see it all connected but starting at that face, I like being in your friendship with ourselves, right which basically brings us full circle back to this idea of the pelvic Bowl being the To creativity and agency. Yes, and so you're working with people very specifically around women and pelvic healing and then the entire rest of their lives are connecting and it's alright. Yes, totally and sexuality. We haven't, you know, explicitly named it that much but I just think yeah sexuality is such a strong piece to this and for me when I feel into being a sexual well being I feel warmth. I feel like tingling on my skin. I feel my breath and I feel aliveness and so I my work is about helping people get in touch with their lives - through their pelvic bowls. Can we talk a little bit about desire? Yeah. It's not desire. In my own experience as I was mentioning feeling disconnected from my babe Identity or feeling disconnected in a lot of ways for my gender. I don't feel non-binary. I feel pretty solidly fam identified, but I don't feel like my desire has been not accessible to me throughout my life and thinking large part because the stories I get about what desire should look like should look like for women Etc. Are you know that desire is always linked with sexuality that it's been really hard for me to get to feel connected to my desire. Like I can feel it when it comes to worldly ambition or like I wanted to you know, move towards some kind of achievement that feels very easy, but to actually just connect to a very embodied space of Desire feels challenging. So I imagine I'm not alone. Not at all. Not at all. Yeah, thank you for sharing that because I think it's a vulnerable experience to share and one that we don't talk about. We don't make room for right and there's this Assumption of like, oh, you know, yeah from that objectifying standpoint of being a big means that you're like sexually turned on all the time and that looks this way. I love this book that you may or may not have heard of called come as you are and she talks about the just so like physiological and nervous system aspects of being in in our sexual beat bodies and and how there's so much variance and I love to starts up book by saying there's nothing wrong with you. Hmm. There's nothing wrong with you where each so different. And I would say that a lot of folks. They part of the work I do with people starting to tune in is this my particular flavor of sexuality or is there some block there or someone or something there that got placed maybe I was even born into it or maybe something happened and that thought process got shut down and I would say that that's that often that that does come up that people are like I think something in me it was shut down. And so I love bringing pleasure practices and to the work that I do and that might look like yeah, like touching something as very softer velvety and just staying with it for small sips of pleasure. If we do too much it can kind of be overwhelming for people and so we're right there. Like I said walking the edge of like Kate how much can you let this? Sin, and how does that feel and then starting to connect that to our sexuality? Yeah. I feel like you would just be such an amazing personal work with with your I think what you named before now, I'm forgetting what you named it actually your ability to see through things. Do you remember how you said I don't know bullshit defect in his chart. So you have your Pisces son / And and as a Leo Rising person that puts Pisces in the 8th house and the 8th house is related to the eighth sign which is Scorpio. So the themes of Scorpio in the Eighth House are themes of what is hidden. What is kind of submerged in the Deep Waters and the Deep waters are the deep feelings astrologically water is the emotional element and so things that have like, you know bin weighted or incurred somehow. They're stuck in it in the mud. They've been buried for a long time. And the way that Scorpio I think really brings its gift is to be able to see all the way into the depth to soar to sense all the way into the depth and out of all the signs Scorpio is the one that has the most keenly attuned psychological awareness. So when I'm looking at your chart Seen that Pisces Sun so personal Radiance that is really radiating with and through pervasive emotional sensitivity, like spidey sense into what what can't be talks about what feels emotionally heavy or scary or repressed or something like this. And then the way that your son gets aspected in your chart by a number of different things. The sense that I get is that your bullshit detector is at least with your clients. I don't know how does in the rest of your life for the rest of the world, but that it's so loving and that I imagine having you call me out on bullshit or like, you know, bring any like I feel like maybe you're not connecting to your truth or is Is your story someone else's I imagine that would be just such a loving experience coming from you. Thank you. Thank you for anything about this. So cool that shows up in the chart. Yeah, thank you for any meal and I've had that reflected to me. I'm over and over again that people are like wow that like hit something home and I went home and really sat with that and like thank you for for being for like saying. In that and over the years I've had to learn to like to communicate in a way that's loving and not just go straight into it right off my fingers gonna be like, but they see you think that's where is moon comes. In fact exactly. I've got my glasses on this is a scientific and it's just like my personality is so much of like wow that hurts less. But I don't like what is that like I want to get to know that and and it's a shame. It's taking me a while to realize that that most people maybe aren't aren't like that and that's part of the job coming right to see me as that. They get to be guided up the piece of their own body right towards that and so yeah, thank you for reflecting that chili love that you just said that too because I think that you know in In this other thread that we've been kind of traveling with around patriarchy and the way that systemic oppression of not just women's bodies a lot of women's bodies, but I'd say like people's bodies people's embodied pleasure. Not the objectified dominating pleasure, but a real like sense of connection to bodies and pleasure that that gets so wiped out by all of these stories that Have about whatever and whatever they are, whether they're you know, super early experiences around our own bodies messaging we're getting being shamed for masturbating adolescent experiences sexual trauma. All of that gets held in this place where societally there's not a lot of space for it unless that space is in some ways perpetuating the trauma that there's such a thetic around like traumatizing storytelling, you know in this kind of sensationalizing of trauma, but that when we can encounter those parts of ourselves and start to move towards them just like you said a while ago that one step towards the wound is a step towards the healing and it sucks words the power that those places. I don't know if you feel this in your work, but I know when I do my embodied work with clients I often feel these I call them nodes and they're like hubs of quietude and Stillness where something has been held very very deeply for a very long time and it's kind of like a son or a planet and that energy orbits around it, but the actual center of it is Encapsulated in this like membrane of defensiveness or it's you know, some kind of protective function and it that protective function kind of like exists to dispel any attention towards it but then when we when we can hold awareness and get in there A lot of times what will come up is just profound Joy or like some kind of, you know, big creative inspiration. Or feeling really empowered and really like energized or something like that. So I'm thinking about the this work that you're doing with people around like encountering these stories and then Your Capacity as a facilitator. What I think is your capacity and looking at your chart to probably do your own body scan with your clients and I'm guessing fairly quickly identify where there are places that are frozen and where there are places that are kind of distracted. I love hearing you talk about how you work critic because it's just so cool to think of how all the different ways that we get to approach the body and that would be We tend to like kind of yeah find these similar patterns of their being these pieces of holding and that around that there might be a little defense system of like, nope. Kick go in here. No, we haven't been in here many years. This was not allowed and then when we're able when the body is able to feel safe enough to actually go towards it then underlying that can be so much Rachel Roy. Oi power. Yeah, I want to give a big up to our birth year Stephen and I have the same birth year. We were both born in 1983 and I've encountered a lot of people through my work as an astrologer of our 1983 babies and folks are all different for sure what everybody's going through and they're different paths, but in 1983, there were two really powerful conjunctions happening Saturn and Pluto were conjunct in the late day. Use of Libra an early degrees of Scorpio and you're honest and Jupiter were conjunct in Sagittarius. So Saturn and Pluto come together every 36 years like they're about to come together in 2020. All of 2019. They're applying Saturn is the time lord. It's like the energy that matures us and that sets things into form and Pluto is the Lord of death. So the energy that destroys And transforms and so those two coming together and do even and I have a similar ascendant. So we both have these Saturn and Pluto at the root of our charts. I think those two coming together have this quality of intense purposefulness and commitment that is not attached to form and you're honest and Jupiter together have this quality to rapidly Is information and to be I think fascinated and hungry for knowledge, but also to not be really constrained by a form. There is this need to synthesize and to see the similarities between different paths. And with the thing that you are just saying I was thinking about what an amazing thing. It is to be alive right now to be our age to be in. In I mean the community that in that we share in some ways of being queer a female identified healers and this Uprising that is happening right now with folks around somatic work and embodiment work and the streaming together of a lot of wisdom paths and self-knowing and ancestral healing. I just I love to hear what you're doing. Being and the way that you're working feel so excited about the ways that you're bridging these different modalities. Yeah, and it feels inevitable as you're talking about that like every like so many traditional systems of science and spirituality observe that when we pushed sermon something, you know expands and need the needs to contract or the other way around if it's been Contracted it goes into expansion. And so I'm just like yeah, it's a really exciting time to be doing this work and I feel so strongly so often I'm like seeing people's posts on Instagram. We're seeing books come up and I feel even like pleasure activism by Adrienne Marie Brown. I started reading it a few weeks ago and I'm like, we're like, oh whatever her. It's like where I feel like this like a collective Muse right now and that so many of us are like tuning into this and it if I got goosebumps because that is part of the toppling over patriarchy is that it has to be Collective. It has to happen together and part of happening together means that our body needs. So be like on board with working together. Absolutely. Yeah can't be mental. No, I'm not or not purely mental. It really we have to be able to feel our effect with each other feel our relationship feel ourselves. Yeah, totally one other thing. I was just thinking when you were talking was how this sadder Pluto conjunction is a signature for Alchemy and that so much of the work that I see you doing that. I feel that I'm doing that so many in our cohort are doing is this reclaiming of ancestral knowledge, but bringing it into a And this age and again this synthesis and you know for you as an mixed-race person and when I first interviewed you 10 years ago, I remember talking with you about like what's it like to be going to this yoga studio where eight of pain out of 10 people are white and here you are as like maybe one of the only brown people may be the only person of Indian descent that was coming in the class. Isis like what about feel like remember we're having quite a good conversation about that but now thinking about your work and how you studied East Asian medicine here in the states and you're blending all of these different ancestral practices and I feel like going I'm going to make an assumption. I don't know what your program was like, but I feel like you're probably going a lot deeper into the ancestral practice. That it's a not so much about the memorization of the texts or like working with these different forms, but back into the roots of an elemental practice. Mmm. Yeah. Oh my gosh before I speak to that I as I was on my way here. I was remembering telling you like, you know, I'm it's getting better and the studio, but I just can't get on board with a namaste at the end. Stop saying that at the end of class. So yeah, I was remembering that conversation to and and I like to always name that some point that you know, I'm not Chinese. I'm not East Asian and yet I'm practicing medicine that came from right over the mountains of where my ancestors came from and there was an exchange of information that happens but even As a person of color it's important for me to like to name where I come from and also where I don't come from and that as I, you know studied East Asian medicine and have so much teef respect for the system. It made me more and more realize that there's a lot of crossover with traditional systems of medicine and that, you know using different words and different kind of yeah map. Mapping to explain what's happening, but there's a lot of overlap of like coming to the body as a whole and to the person and not the pathology and then also this other piece of really connecting to the natural world. And I think that's a huge piece of embodiment that I would like to talk more about in my work as how to remember ourselves as nature. Yeah. Yeah. Jeevan, thank you so much. Thank you Renee. Is there anything we haven't talked about that you want to talk about? Hmm? I guess they just want to say to folks who who might be listening to this and maybe feeling like wow. I need some healing around my pelvic bowl and the feels scary or they don't know where to go that to just start small and to find somebody who's really who that they can build a trusting relationship with there's a saying in therapy. Big circles that what gets wounded in relationship heels and relationship and so my work is strongly relational meaning that the relationship itself is part of the healing that happens and so as they're looking for somebody to work with to make sure it's somebody that they can start to develop trust with because that's going to be really really fundamental for the work itself. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, thanks for saying that. Do you only work in person or do you work online with people? I do work online and I'm currently working on some 12 you relaunching the embodied steaming class soon. And then I'm thinking about doing some group coaching. So I think there's like I mentioned Collective there's something that feels really powerful about working in a group right now. So keep your eyes peeled for that. So people can do The steaming class online as well. Yeah the steaming classes online. And then right now I'm currently teaching an in-person class that will hopefully make its way online this year called secret sexual contract. Mmm, and it's a six-week class that I teach with Liz long who's a Reiki healer and intuitive healer and then Ally a white Ally where we really start to like Ian and transform and rewrite our contracts that we've made with ourselves and with the world around our sexuality. So it was amazing. Yeah, and all of this is on the website. Okay, that's class started already it did this will be our second class today. Okay, and jeevan's practice is called flower hand wellness and you can find her website at flower hand wellness.com anything else we want to leave the listeners with you then? And feel free to find me on my Instagram as well at flower hand Wellness. I like receiving messages from people and you know directing them to the right place to go. So feel free to reach out definitely followed you Vince Instagram. It's so good. It's one of my favorites. Yeah. Yours is one of my favorite. Yay you also have is it a podcast the moon? What are the moon named done days? Is a series of conversations twice a month with folks who are in the world of an embodied healing and women pelvic healing where we I basically sit and an interview people about the work that they do and they usually share some sort of self care practice. And so that will right now I'm like figuring out the technology platform that's best for that, but definitely Stay tuned. Okay, but for the meantime, when you sign up for free on your website you get access to those videos and you get a link to login, and I don't know if it's a participation but to to be there to observe the conversations not exactly it for right now. If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll get access to this library of videos, and and I hope to have a more participatory live. Whether that's back on Instagram life and somehow having a more life component to the yeah. Yeah for well, I am over the moon and so excited about your work. Mm. Thanks for coming to talk to me. Thank you Renee. So awesome said just get to spend time with you. I know we should do it more ditto. So feel like a good place to Perfect. All right. Thanks everyone for listening. I sure hope you enjoyed this conversation. Station as much as I did. I just want to remind you that from now until September 1st. You can get a 25% discount on jeevan's annual embodied Bay membership subscription check my show notes for the sign up link or go directly to jeevan's website flower hand wellness.com and use the code Astro babes at checkout. That's all caps Astro babes as always if you enjoyed embodied astrology and these guests episodes. Please consider becoming a sustaining subscriber subscriptions are pay what you can and subscribe purrs receive all kinds of monthly Astro gifts and perks find out more at embodied astrology.com / subscribe.
Tune in to this special episode and guest interview with Jeevan Singh! In this episode we talk about the power of the pelvic bowl and the potential of language and embodiment for healing. Jeevan talks about her journey from trauma to awakening on her life’s path as a somatic womb and pelvic healer and integrative mental health practitioner. She shares some of how she facilitates awareness and supports clients in healing and empowerment. Renee offers interpretations of Jeevan’s chart throughout the interview and we discuss her Leo rising, Scorpio and Pisces placements, Chiron in Taurus and more! — Jeevan comes from the Sanskrit जीवन (jīvana), meaning life, or more specifically that spark which animates every living being. A name that’s fitting, as it speaks to her life’s work - guiding womxn and folks with vaginas back into the sanctuaries of their bodies, to reclaim their birthright of aliveness and embodiment. As a visionary, womb-keeper, herbalist, doctor and guide, Jeevan offers work that is experiential and holistic. She offers 1:1 sessions and courses on holistic pelvic wellness and embodiment coaching. She believes that one of the most radical things we can do for ourselves and the collective is to cultivate self-friendship on both a physical and spiritual level. Jeevan holds a doctorate in East Asian medicine and a masters in integrative mental health and currently offers 1:1 Embodied Pelvic Healing sessions, both in Portland and worldwide remotely. She has a handful of online courses, including (as mentioned in today’s episode): - Body Oracle, an instant access intro to embodiment mini-course to start developing a sense of your inner yes, inner no and meeting your Body Oracle. - Herbal Pelvic Steam Baths for Beginners - out very soon! This instant access online course covers all the bases for starting to safely do a pelvic / yoni steam in the comfort of your own home. - Embodied Steaming - this 6-week online course runs 2-3 times yearly and goes beyond the basics of pelvic steaming to be able to actually work with the practice of steaming, plant medicine and ritual as a means of embodied pelvic healing. Topics explore include Safety & Belonging, Boundaries & Personal Power, Softening Into Pleasure and Authentic Creating. Each week these are explored along with a steaming ritual and live classes. - *New* Membership - Being released before Leo season ends, this annual membership is a portal into the world of embodiment, ritual, cycle magic and seasonal wellness. Month by month, we go into the energetics of the season, connecting it back to our bodies and pelvic bowls. Members will receive a monthly live call with Jeevan, a monthly self-care ritual and practice, pre-recorded classes by guest instructors sharing skills, access to this course library and more. In addition, all will have access to the members-only FB group. Use the code ASTROBABES for a 25% discount on the Embodied Babes Annual Membership: https://jeevansingh.mykajabi.com/offers/FGUHRy7q/checkout To learn more about Jeevan, visit her website: flowerhandwellness.com and Instagram: @flowerhandwellness —— Become a monthly subscriber of Embodied Astrology https://www.embodiedastrology.com/subscribe Did you enjoy this episode? 