Welcome to friends with fertility, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of fertility, reproductive health, and all the emotional journeys that are in between.
I'm your host Elizabeth King, a fertility expert dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, support, and inspiration you need on your path to parenthood.
Whether you're just starting out, exploring your options or looking for solidarity and advice, we are here for you.
Let's embark on this journey together and turn uncertainty into empowerment and make friends with fertility.
Let's get started.
Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to friends with fertility.
Today, we have Amy Natalie.
She is an author of Pod coast hosts and a feminine leadership coach with over a decade of coaching experience.
She specializes in helping women to emerge as the most authentic, confident, and self expressed versions of themselves.
Her mission is to ignite women into their feminine powers so that they can live a life of freedom, pleasure, and fulfillment.
Amy is the author of the feminine way and host of the feminine frequency pod podcast, which has over 375 episodes reaching women all over the globe.
Welcome, Amy.
Thanks for being here.
Thank you for having me.
I'm so excited to connect with you and your community.
Yeah.
How how did you get into this? Let's start that.
Yeah.
So interestingly enough, I actually started as a holistic health coach and a nutritionist.
And I was working with women who struggled with issues like auto immunity and, uh, with digestive issues and hormone imbalances, and I was working with a practitioner who also specialized in fertility.
So I started in that realm because I used to struggle a lot with my, my health.
And when I realized that there were possibilities and ways that I could feel more empowered with taking care of my body and my, my well-being, I wanted to share that with other women.
And I think that's part of my nature is to be a student and then to want to share that and to give that to others who maybe haven't learned that information yet.
And so that's been very much my path is to first really heal myself and to gain the tools to do that, and then to embody that wisdom and then to share it.
And so it started really with the body.
And As I got deeper into my journey, I was also really struggling with my mental health.
I was struggling with depression.
I was struggling with anxiety.
I was feeling really burnt out.
And I just felt really disconnected for myself and my body.
And so that led me down the path of learning more about masculine and feminine energy.
I was very much a lot of the time in my head overthinking, overworking, overwhelmed, like just in that mode of constantly doing and putting a lot of pressure on myself.
And I was really unfulfilled and really unhappy.
And so I felt like something was really missing and that there was something deeper that I needed to address.
And that's what led me down really my spiritual path, my personal development, and my healing path, and more of a holistic way of approaching health and wellness.
And as I started to feel better emotionally, I started to see that the symptoms in my body started to resolve.
And I also started to see that my relationship started to improve and that my business started to grow, and that overall the quality of my life started to get better.
And of course, then I was like, okay, I need to go back to school.
I wanna teach this to other women as well.
That's awesome.
I feel like it's so fun when you get to have those moments and you're like, oh my god.
Listen to how this changed my life, and I want it to change yours.
It's one of those moments I think for most people, I think, feel that same way.
Like, we get energized by information that could potentially help somebody else.
So I really feel what you're saying there.
What's one belief about feminine leadership that you feel like you're here to disrupt? I know you talk about the masculine feminine, but what specifically do you feel is something that you're here to teach us that can really disrupt that that I guess I don't wanna say the the wheel that we are on, but in a lot of ways, it is.
And I'm the first one to admit.
I was definitely on that.
You know, I was single till I was 40 and I was doing all the things and living a very masculine life, and even self aware of it to a degree because of just the nature of being on your own, but also it's hard to shift that energy.
But to your point, when you shift it, things start to change.
But What's one belief that you have that's here to disrupt that feminine leadership? Yeah.
I think especially for women who are operating in that more hyper masculine mode like myself and like you, where we we feel disconnected from the feminine is that the fear is if I embrace my feminine energy, it means that I'm not going to be successful and I'm not gonna be productive and that I'm not going to be able to achieve all the goals that I wanna achieve.
What would you what what do you define as feminine energy? Because I tell people it's different for everybody.
Right? But how would you describe that? If somebody's listening and they're like, well, I think I'm in my feminine energy, but what does that even look like? Can you explain that a little more? Yeah.
If there's a word that I could use to describe the feminine, it's aliveness.
It's life force energy.
And it's that connection to whether it's your creativity.
It could be to the nurturing side of yourself, your connection to your intuition, your connection to your body, your connection to nature.
Like you said, there's so many access points of what that means to be connected to the feminine.
And to me with the feminine, I think what people misunderstand is they think that it means being soft or being weak.
And there is a lot of power in connecting to that vulnerability and to that softness and being connected to our emotions.
And so there's this misconception that if we actually allow ourselves to feel or allow ourselves to slow down, that we're not gonna get to where we wanna go, and we're not gonna be as successful as men or as successful as other people in our industries or in our peer groups.
And what I found is that it's actually the opposite is that connecting to your feminine energy is a superpower.
And that when we learn how to use both our feminine energy and our masculine energy together, that is what allows us to have more of sustainable success in our lives.
And I really wanna use that word sustainable because, yes, you can go fast, you can go hard, you can make a lot of progress in the masculine, but especially for us as women with our hormones.
And with our our menstrual cycles, if we override what our body is telling us, eventually we burn out, we slow down, and we can't keep going at the same pace.
So I really wanna emphasize this piece around creating sustainable success in your life.
And you use the word burnout, and I think it kind of gets thrown around of like, oh my gosh.
I'm so burnout on this.
I'm so overwhelmed.
But really those feelings are kind of your own red flag of if you don't start to make some changes, your physical being will start to break down and obviously we're talking about fertility and I think fertility doesn't come up until you're you're wanting to have a baby for most people.
Right? They're like, okay.
Well, what happened? Well, what happened was your body was signaling you to slow down or to look at something and you were ignoring it because you were so supercharged on building your career or whatever it was or masking the symptoms.
Right? I have a painful period so I took was on the pill or whatever your situation may be.
And I think when you are talking to somebody and say, am I saying hearing yourself say, excuse me, I'm so busy or I'm getting so burnt out or I'm so overwhelmed.
I think that's your time to, like, sit down and write it down.
Like, what is overwhelming you? What is starting to burn you out? And how could this potentially start to affect your your health? And I think for a lot of people and tell me about your clients, but a lot of people don't realize that it's affecting the health until it's kind of too late or like it's gone to the point where They they're seeing three different doctors to try to figure out why they're having gut issues or why their periods are off or something like that.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
I mean, the signs are always there leading up to it.
It's it's never just this overnight thing where all of a sudden your hormones are a wreck.
There's something that's been leading up to that.
And like you said, there's so many times where we either consciously override those signals.
Or like you said, we've been masking them and Honestly, I don't feel like it's any individual's fault.
I feel like this is more of a systemic and a cultural issue where we are not taught even as young girls about our menstrual cycles.
We are not taught how to listen to the symptoms in our body.
If anything, we're taught to push through it, to ignore it, to take medication, to mask the symptoms and the pain.
And so the work that I'm here to do, and even in this conversation, is if we can bring some more awareness to let women know, oh, it's actually not normal for you to have super painful periods all the time.
It's not normal for you to be exhausted all the time.
It's not normal for you to be disinterested in the things that you used to be passionate and excited about.
It's not normal for you to have low libido no matter how long you've been in a relationship for with your partner.
All of these things that we have, quote, unquote, normalized, that are actually indications that, hey, there's something going on.
And, and like you said, you know, the check engine light usually has been on for a while.
But it's almost like we're we're covering it and we're ignoring it until we have no choice but to listen.
And it's interesting.
It is human nature for us to to wait until the car is broken down to fix something.
Right.
And there's almost like a badge of honor, so to speak, if you're a hard worker.
Right? Like, the harder you work, the more successful you're gonna be, or whatever.
And really, you have to measure your own success of what that looks like.
I love that.
Yeah.
That's something that I talk to my clients a lot about is, like, can we redefine what does success mean? To me, like, the quality of my relationships, the quality of my health, the fulfillment that I'm experiencing in my life, And, of course, a piece of that is to have the financial means to live a life that you enjoy.
So we don't wanna ignore that.
And it's like, okay.
But at what cost am I? And what is the approach that I'm taking to get there? Is is really what we're looking at.
For sure.
And in the feminine way in your book, what chapter do you feel for you personally when you were writing it? It was like, oh my gosh.
This is, like, This is my jam.
This is exactly why I'm writing this and in the flow, and I know in writing my own book, there's some parts of it where I feel like that's what needs to be said, right, to teach what you're talking about.
But then other where other areas where I'm like, Oh my gosh.
This is bringing me back to exactly why I'm doing this in the first place.
What was it for you in in writing your book? Yeah.
There's so many pieces of it, and I really do feel like my book is such an extension of of myself and my story and my teachings and in each chapter, there is either a personal story or a client story that that I feel really deeply connected to.
But the one that's coming up that I think would would really speak to our listeners and that really was such a big part of my journey is this conversation around surrender.
And I think for us, in general, but also as women, we really like to have control over things.
And we like to know where things are going and we like to have a plan.
And I found found myself in what you might call a quarter life crisis in my mid to late twenties.
And I was living a quote unquote success full life.
I was married.
We owned a house together.
My life looked really beautiful on the outside.
I had everything that one could ever want.
And yet inside, I was feeling so empty, so miserable, so depressed.
I was emotionally eating.
I was so inflamed.
And my my thoughts were super negative.
And I just had this this experience of, like, it can't be like this forever.
Like, it's not meant to be like this.
And I had heard about this concept of surrender before, but I hadn't really had a personal connection with having faith in something greater in a greater plan in this idea that we are always being supported and guided and that sometimes we don't have the answers and that there's actually really beautiful things that happen and and come through when we don't have so much structure and we don't know all of the the next steps that are gonna happen.
And so I went through a really, really deep process of getting to a place of realizing that if I was truly going to be happy and really listening to my own intuition and what was right for me, that it was going to require me to surrender and let go of certain aspects of my life that were not contributing to my highest good and to my health and well-being.
And so That's when I decided at that time to it was the hardest decision I have ever made still to this date where I ended my marriage, and it was this deep surrender of Okay.
I don't know what's gonna happen next, but I trust that there's a greater plan for me.
And what what's really interesting, and I've heard this over and over again from other women who have taken courageous leaps, whether it's leaving a job that feels out of alignment moving to a new city, um, or moving to a new country or, you know, leaving a relationship is that when we take that courageous step, there's so much beauty and support and love that is on the other side of that and freedom that our mind can't quite comprehend because in our mind, like, the unknown means failure or it means that we're not gonna be safe.
So that moment of, you know, sitting in my bathtub and sending out a prayer to to a higher power to the universe to god being like, I can't keep doing this this way and I need your help.
And I surrender.
Like, I I give you give you give you the wheel.
Like, please show me the way.
And that was a huge, huge experience for me, and I've had many other surrender moments over and over again that that invite me into that lesson of letting go of control.
Which is I mean, that's my mantra these days.
As I surrender to you, please take care of everything.
There's so much happening, but also I think and I even remember feeling this way years ago too.
Like, what does surrender even look like when people would say you just need to surrender? Okay.
What does that mean? And I think again, it means something different for everybody.
And specifically within fertility, I think surrendering is, again, different for everyone, but it gets you to a point of we are so used to controlling everything with whether it's work or like you said with a diet or whatever that when people come to me and they're like, I'm so type a.
I've done all the things.
I, you know, I'm taking the supplements.
I've seen the doctor x y z, all the things.
It's like, okay.
Well, let's go a little deeper than that.
To see what else needs to let go or what else needs to be healed or what else is under there that's preventing this from happening.
And I think that's where the surrender is.
It's like the things that may be hiding for you that you kind of know that you should look at, but you're don't really want to because it's not super convenient or it's too painful or maybe you're not even aware of it or maybe it doesn't even belong to you.
Maybe it's, you know, something in the lineage that is coming up that doesn't belong to you, but it's surrendering and acknowledging that to, again, to your point, Amy, of, like, I just gotta trust if this is the right thing and it's all gonna work out and it's all gonna be okay.
And it that can be really, really hard, especially in fertility when you're up against a time clock, right, when you're like, Time is not on my side to be surrendering.
I need to be doing something.
And oftentimes, that feels counterproductive to kind of take a pause and to take stock of what's happening in your life.
But that is where things when the surrender happens, that is where things start to unravel for the better, and people come into your life and things start to happen that you're like, oh, okay.
Maybe this is because of that.
Right? You can only connect the dots looking backwards, not looking forward.
And I think that's a big a big thing.
So thank you for pointing that out in your book because that is a daily like I said, I'm not kidding when I say it's a daily mantra for me.
It's It's something we all need to work on no matter how self aware you are.
There's always something that is bringing you to surrender.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
I have a friend who was on a fertility journey for four years.
And she went through a lot of deep work around, you know, surrendering and surrendering the timeline and surrendering how it was gonna happen, when it was gonna happen, if it was gonna happen, and it was super challenging and painful, and I just watched her go through this journey.
And eventually, she did get pregnant.
She currently has a one year old, beautiful, healthy daughter.
And looking back, she realized that all of our closest friends started having children the same year or like six months after she had her daughter.
And so now she gets to be a parent with all of these other parents and they get to have community in that way.
And, yeah, looking back, she could see, oh, this is the timeline that it was meant to be on even though it was a really challenging journey and so I wanna share that with your listeners of, you know, sometimes we don't know the reason behind these things.
And what I'll share just from like an energetic and embodiment perspective, especially when it comes to hormones is that when we are operating from that place of feeling stressed out when we're operating from that place of constriction.
And even I kind of think of like having our our fist tight of trying to control things it slows down the process.
It creates more imbalance in our system.
And it's very much easier said than done to surrender, like, to your point.
And when we are able to often when we are able to let go of the grip a little bit and to allow things to unfold how they're supposed to.
Sometimes that's what we actually need in order to find the answers.
And in order for things to speed up, there's like this staying of like slowing down to speed up.
Contro it is con contradictory.
And like you said, the the pause, there's a concept called the sacred Pause, which is from a book called, um, sacred Success by Barbara Stani.
It's actually a money book, but she talks about, you know, sometimes we do need to take that step back.
To go within, to listen, to gain clarity, and that's where the deepest wisdom comes.
And then we can move forward, but from a place of alignment rather than from a place of forcing and pushing and continuing to do the same thing that we've been doing.
So I really love this concept of that sacred pause and of softening the grip.
Yes.
And I think that's a great analogy of, like, clenching your fist, like, the contraction versus the release and you know, does that do you contract when you think about something, or do you feel open to that? So I know we hear a lot about the word alignment and embodiment.
Can you demystify what that looks like for people in everyday life? Because for people that these types of words might be new to them and they're hearing them for the first time or maybe they are hearing them for, you know, a few times that they still don't, like, what does embodiment mean? What does being in alignment look like in every day? Yeah.
Yeah.
Let's start with embodiment.
So embodiment is being connected to your body.
We all have bodies.
We're human beings, and more often than not in the Western world at least, we are very much living as if we are living from the neck up.
So we're very cerebral.
We're very logical.
We're very focused on planning and organizing and doing and thinking, yet if you take a moment and slow down and just even feel your breath.
Like, take a deep breath with me and feel The air coming in, maybe you feel a feeling of openness or expansion in your heart or your lungs or your belly, and you start to get connected with the sensations in your body.
Right? Where do I feel tense? Where do I feel tight? Where do I feel soft, where do I feel open? Where am I clenching? My job? My shoulders? And as we start to tune into those sensations in our body, we start to connect with the wisdom of our bodies.
Our bodies are so intelligent.
Our heart is always be beating.
Our lungs are always breathing.
Our bodies are doing these crazy healing processes every single night when we go to sleep.
And yet, we often don't listen to those signals and symptoms that our body is always trying to tell us.
So when we are embodied, it means that we're actually in our body.
It means that we're feeling.
It means that we're sensing.
And from that place, from that deep listening, we can start to get a sense of, what do I need right now? Instead of what does this exercise program tell me to do? What does this nutrition or diet tell me to do? What does this doctor tell me I need to do? And instead, can I start to listen to, oh, I feel really tired right now? Maybe I need to rest.
Or I feel like, I don't know, certain foods that I'm craving because my body is guiding me towards that.
And then there's also ways when we listen to our body, we can start to tune into our emotions, and we can start to see, oh, like, is something feeling off in my romantic relationship? You know, I think when you get into a fertility journey, it can bring up a lot of stress stress and pressure in the relationship.
And so I do believe that the more in touch that we as women can be with our emotions and the more clearly we can communicate with our partners, what we need, what we want, what our desires are, then we can have beyond the same page, and we can work as a team instead of working against each other.
Right, or having these conflicts that that play into it.
So, yeah, to me, embodiment is being deeply in touch with our bodies, and and I think especially as women, our bodies have so much wisdom to tell us.
For sure.
What are some of your favorite rituals or kind of no non negotiables every day to stay connected with your body and your feminine energy that you can share? Yeah.
I think especially if we're talking about the realm of fertility is something that can be really simple that you can do is place both hands on your lower belly around your womb and do some breathing into that space.
So putting your hands there, you can even put them sometimes they end up being a little like heart shaped there, which I love.
And then taking some deep breaths and really allowing the breath to come all the way down into your womb, into your pelvis, and breathing in, and then softening on the exhale seeing if you can soften any tension that you're holding and your hip or in your womb space, and just starting to create that connection of the mind body connection with your hands, with your breath to that area in your body.
And with that, I also find that we store a lot of energy in our hips as women, and we're often sitting and stagnant throughout the day.
So one of my favorite practices is just you can do it while you're sitting down, and also I find it to be helpful when you're standing, is putting both feet on the ground and just doing some hip circles in one direction, doing hip circles in another direction, and One of my favorite practices is just intuitive movement putting on a song and closing your eyes and letting your body move.
And I find that even in just one to three songs of letting your body move getting out of that kind of linear structured posture that we often are in that we start to release tension.
We start to release stress.
We start to connect with more of that playful and alive versions of ourselves.
So those are a few that I would recommend.
The last one I would recommend is getting out in nature.
If you can even go sit on a park bench or go for a walk, it's so helpful to regulate our nervous systems.
And I have this saying where it's, you know, the more that you spend time in nature, the more that we connect with our own true nature.
And it's kind of this concept of when we unplugged from technology and from our daily life, and we plug into nature, which is where we all come from, and and it allows us to feel more connected to our natural state of being, whatever that means to you.
So those are some tools more of the simple embodiment tools that I recommend.
Uh, I love that.
And it mainly too because I think all of those things that Amy just mentioned also connect with the spirit baby energy that I talk about all the time.
Our spirit babies want to come to parents that are creating and the dancing and that's creating movement.
That's opening yourself up, opening that energy, connecting with nature, connecting to the divine, and whatever that looks like for you, and that is in nature often.
So there's they're multifaceted.
It's, you know, at first glance, you might be like, I'm not gonna go, like, dance or I'm not gonna go out in nature.
That's not gonna move the needle for me.
And I'm here to tell you it does move the needle and it will move the needle, and it's not just frivolous things.
They're sometimes those those things that may seem not as productive on your to do list of thinking like I'm doing all the things right.
These less, I guess, structured things.
Yeah.
You know, can be more powerful.
So Just wanna add that.
Let's get to your podcast.
Just so you've recorded over 375 episodes of the feminine frequency.
What's one guest or conversation that deeply sir surprised you or transformed you when you were recording that? Or maybe just what what about it has been eye opening for you as as hosting all of those episodes that you've enjoyed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I feel like the podcast has been such a beautiful form of expression and connection that I didn't have any idea was going to be the case when I first started it.
Like, I started it in my walk in closet.
I had no idea what I was doing.
It was like the best place where the the microphone sounded the best.
And I was like, I don't really know what I'm doing, and I don't know who's gonna listen to this, but I feel really passionate about this, and I wanna share it.
And so I did and just having deep meaningful conversations with my guests and then having women from all over the world that I've never met reach out and be like, oh, that one thing changed the way that I see my relationship or that one practice that you shared about has now become something that I do every single day.
And it's really created this space for It's an educational platform, but really what I found is that it it's a space for connection and for community.
And, you know, I I feel like I do learn something in every single episode.
You know, I've talked earlier about being the student, and it's like, this is the stuff that I love learning about.
It's the stuff that I love teaching about.
And, yeah, one of the big conversations I just had a one that went live today that I loved because I've had this conversation several times with different people, and I love these different angles is this conversation around letting go of good girl programming and being your authentic self.
And for whatever reason, just the way that this this guest embodied the work and the way that she articulated it so beautifully, it, like, created new perspectives for myself, and I I know my listeners as well.
So I feel like it's been a an evolving journey and and I think there's so many beautiful voices and so much wisdom to be shared.
And when I was first starting my journey with health and wellness, like, I was listening to a podcast to learn more and to Here things that we don't really hear in the mainstream.
So I feel like this is such a great space for people to get to tap into that and to open their minds to new possibilities.
Could not agree more.
And I think you give giving hope.
Right? So not only are you learning, but then you hear other stories of people may who have overcome things or like you were saying, you lived your life in one way and transformed it to another.
So maybe they're looking to get out of their corporate situation or whatever it may be.
I think there's so many instances that can give inspiration to other people that I think is so beautiful.
So how can people find you and work with you and learn from you? Yeah.
Well, first, I wanna say thank you again for having me on the show.
I've really enjoyed being here.
Thanks for being here.
Yeah.
And, um, the first place I would recommend since we're just talking about the podcast is the feminine frequency podcast.
You can find it on Spotify.
Apple or YouTube.
So we do have some video, uh, video versions of the podcast as well.
And then I also would love to share a free gift with your listeners.
I created a morning ritual to help women to connect with their bodies and to have more of a empowered mindset to start the day.
So it's called the empowered feminine morning ritual, and and that will will be a great, you know, meditation and guided practice to to really bring you home to your body.
Um, so that would be a great resource as a next step.
You can find my book on Amazon, and then all of my other offerings you can find on my website aimeenatalieco.
com or on Instagram, Amy Natalie co.
I have both one on one offerings and then a group mentorship called the multidimensional woman.
So lots of beautiful insights.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Well, thanks again, Amy, for being here, and I look forward to connecting again.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for joining us on this episode of Friends with Fertility.
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