Welcome to your Body. Remembers pleasure. I'm your host, Rahi Chun. This podcast is devoted to sexual embodiment, intimacy, and the body's innate capacity to heal, feel, and remember pleasure. If something here resonates with you, you're welcome to explore more writings and resources@rahichun.com. And now let's begin.

 In today's episode, we invite Dr. Jennifer Lang, a highly trained western obstetrician and gynecologist with a specialty in gynecologic oncology, to explore how we can listen and honor our body's authority whilst in engaging and benefiting from the expertise of the Western medical paradigm. Jen shares how surrendering to the authority of her own body's wisdom during her natural birth radically changed her approach to obstetrics.

We discussed the vital role of consent, both in the medical setting. As well as in intimate settings, especially for teens and young adults, which her second book consent addresses and how channeling this book was a profound healing and reclamation of her own voice.

Today I am very happy to invite Dr. Jennifer Lang to the podcast. Dr. Lang is a mother to three amazing human beings. They are precocious and intelligent, and witty and creative and wonderful. She's also a trained obstetrician and gynecologists specializing in gynecologic oncology. With a focus on integrative and preventative medicine which resulted in flow, a woman's integrative wellness practice.

She co-founded an international medical nonprofit delivering cervical cancer prevention services to women in resource poor countries, and she's the author of two books the whole nine months, a Week by Week Pregnancy Nutrition Guide and Consent. Every teens guide to healthy sexual relationships. Jen, thanks so much for being with us today.

I am so happy to be here and I always enjoy our conversations and I can't wait to see where this one goes. Awesome. Yeah, me too. Me too. So Jen, because the theme of this podcast is all about supporting people to restore, reclaim, and realize their organic sexual wellness and vibrancy. I really wanted to invite a conversation with a medical professional so we can understand what are the limitations? What are the benefits? Like, how can listeners navigate really benefiting from the medical expertise of their, medical care providers whilst really having the authority in listening to their body's authentic wisdom and guidance as well. And I thought a great starting off point would be to invite you to share about your your first birth, your first birthing experience, because I find it fascinating that as a trained obstetrician you pretty much took it into your own hands.

You really honored the authority of what your body was saying. In the timing, in the way Sheila was delivered and how you went about that. Yeah, I think it is a good jumping off point because for me, I think personally and professionally, it marked a a transition in every way it marked a transition, right?

Like becoming a mother is. Probably the greatest identity shakeup that like I could ever imagine going through. But also as somebody in the field trained in obstetrics gynecology, I. Learned so much going through that experience myself, and it radically changed my approach to birthing from then on.

I guess just to tell the story. Yeah. I'd been trained, in a pretty normal conservative la labor floor, like a regular residency program in New York, with the exception that the hospital I did my residency in had an a birthing floor, like a birthing center, one floor below the regular labor floor, and that floor was completely midwife run.

And so I did have the experience. We really didn't attend births down there. I'd seen, the way they had a bed, like a real bed, like a bed you could imagine sleeping in as opposed to a hospital bed, and it felt more like a home and everything was quieter and more relaxed. I'd been down there, but really my only experience of patients were if they'd been transferred from the birth, the birthing center, up to the labor floor, because something had gone, off in a way. So I never really got to observe a natural birth in a birthing center midwife run. However, when I became pregnant I went to a obstetrician, an md and she was pregnant too, and she had referred patients to this hypnobirthing class with a wonderful hypnotherapist that we both know Alicia and temporary and, I was six weeks pregnant at the time, but I was a big overachiever and I wanted to be prepared. And so I started hypnobirthing at six weeks pregnant. And I actually, during the course of that pregnancy, I took the class three times. I just kept taking it and. The reason I did that was that I saw that hypnobirthing is a practice, like a yoga practice, and the more you practice it, the more comfortable and natural the process becomes.

So it's really about, my version of Hypnobirthing is that it's about getting out of the fear pain cycle in the brain and dropping down into the body and into the present moment with what. You are actually experiencing not what someone is telling you're going to experience or what you might be afraid you might experience, but what you're actually experiencing.

And using connecting to the breath in order to go into a state of deep relaxation. And it worked so well for me, I took the class three times, and then on the night that I went into labor with Sheila, it was a full moon and I was, using my breathing. And I love everything about hypnobirthing.

I love the way that. They change the language so that they don't, they talk about surges, not contractions. And so I was visualizing, like riding these waves, these surges of energy and each surge was bringing my baby closer to me. And so I experienced this just state of. Deep bliss. And I've come to understand, some people use the term orgasmic birth.

I don't think I had like involuntary rhythmic pelvic injections, but I definitely was in full on blis out, and I was swimming through my labor yeah, under the full moon. And all of a sudden I felt. My, my intention the whole time was to go to the hospital and have a routine birth in the hospital.

But I was so relaxed that all of a sudden I, I felt rectal pressure and I checked myself and I was, eight centimeters dilated. We went to the hospital and I was a fellow at the time, so I felt very comfortable kinda. Just, to be frank, giving orders, so I was in, in the mode where like I was the doctor that gave orders to people.

And so it just was I rolled into the labor floor and I was like, I want that. I don't want that. I don't want that. So I just, I refuse the. Iv, I refused a blood draw. I allowed them to auscultate the fetal heart rate with a Doppler externally. And I heard a beautiful acceleration in Sheila's heart rate.

Yeah, during a contraction, which is a great sign that the baby's tolerating labor just beautifully. And I said, okay, please everyone leave the room. And I ran a bath in the tub and Cedars doesn't do water births, but I got into that bath and I received her into my own arms. And it was and immediately to the breast.

And it was a absolutely beautiful, just quiet, calm experience. My, my doctor had her baby a few weeks before and she was back at work. But she. At the hospital before Sheila was already in my arms. Wow. It was self attended? Yeah. To be clear, there was a midwife who was present on the labor floor at the time, and she quietly came in and said.

I've been present at many water births. I'm here if you need me. And then she stepped back and just allowed me to have my birth experience which was so beautiful. And, and then basically I was out of there in 12 hours, wow. And I just and that's, that felt right for me.

And so when I after living that experience and knowing that it was possible to have a painless, blissful, natural birth and how comfortable I was at home, and really the only moment. That I experienced any kind of stress was tr transferring to the hospital, you which was just like getting into a car.

I, I wanted to stay in that beautiful pool under the full moon. But so when I had my second and my third, I had planned midwife, attended home births, and that was. The way I did it. But after seeing that, that was possible, after feeling that in my body I really wanted to let my patients know that this was an option.

Wow. That this was possible. So I. Many patients if they wanted to get pregnant, I would present the full range of birthing options for them, which would be, from a home birth to a birthing center, to a labor floor. And really we would. Explore, their feelings about birth, any concerns they might have, what felt right to them?

What was their intuition telling them? And we would find the birth, plan that felt right and authentic to who they were. And though I myself as an obstetrician did not attend any home births I did back up home birth midwives. So if they had patients laboring at home who needed some kind of medical intervention, I was happy to accept their care when they transferred to the hospital and try to continue the same.

Ethic of the birthing experience. So calm, quiet, not like revving up the stress levels, but, and even if they needed a C-section, I did something I called a hypno C-section where, you know, the or was dark and we just have the one light over the baby. And when. As long as the baby wasn't in distress, she would go or he would go straight to the mother's breast while she was on the table.

And all of these things I felt were really important and also just part of the full range of options. And for me, the heart of what this conversation is about is, I think, is letting women know that they have a full range of options and that they are. Always the the leader, the guide the director of their experience.

Never taking away their autonomy or authority, but rather working in partnership with each individual to find the experience that's right for her. And you know what, as I'm saying this I realize I'm using. Female pronouns. And I do want this conversation to be as inclusive as possible, and I'm sorry if I, it's just old patterns that I'm trying to, but anyone with reproductive organs is capable of, of giving birth, yeah. Female. That first birth when, I mean birthing Sheila, sounds like it was so blissful. It sounds like it was so amazing and how Yeah. Yeah, I love the way your body really took charge of the situation. You were a fellow there and it is your, field of professional training.

So you knew, I'm guessing what was safe, what was within kind of the parameters of safety. But at the same time, you really did surrender to your body's authority and what it knew felt right. Yeah. And it's so interesting, the words you just used surrendered to my body's authority. And we live in such a culture that is so like brain, it privileges the brain and we think of a separation between brain and body, right?

But there is. Deep wisdom held in places in the body, other than the brain, as yeah. As you experience in your work every day, and I knew, I have a tendency to get really busy in my head and to make plans and to set goals and really birthing you. You want the opposite of that.

I needed to get out of my head and get out of my own way and surrender to the wisdom of my body that knows what to do. And I believe that, all women's bodies know what to do. Unfortunately we have. Medicalized birth, and we have we've medicalized, a lot of natural body processes and lost a lot of that wisdom and, we don't really talk about the wisdom of the body, the authority of the body. And in fact, even if you think about the language we use oh, who delivered your baby? You delivered your baby, and so I. I don't know. I really think that there is a lot to be done to return that wisdom and authority back to the body where it, Yeah.

Has always resided. Really, it's it's, it's not true that it ever leaves us. It's just sure. We're told to take orders from other people. We need to remember that. We need to begin here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like the hypnobirthing and doing three rounds of it starting from six weeks.

Yes. That was like, 'cause it's profound, Jen, because you, it really trained you to be with your senses and with your body and being with your body. You were you were able to listen to your body so clearly. I'm, I wanna. Ask you about that. Given that, we know that our body's wisdom knows beyond the mind, and knowing that in situations of stress we will become hypervigilant and leave our body and go into, the mind.

I'm just wondering, in hospital births when a client is feeling. I've just heard stories of induced labor C-sections are based on the bottom line and efficiency of a hub hospital is run, the cutting of the umbilical cord before the infant is really used to their new environment and their way of breathing like.

All of these things feel like they are not honoring the authority of the body. What advice would you have for listeners who do have a planned hospital birth or want to, take advantage of the expertise of a hospital, but also wanna honor the authority of their body? I think that, for low risk pregnancies where there isn't a complicating medical condition midwives are phenomenal. Midwives have a whole different. Perspective on birth. It is much more normalized. It is less medicalized. They treat it as a natural process that doesn't need to be messed with until there is a clear indication for an intervention in which case, they're well-trained to recognize when those interventions are needed and how to proceed.

But if you. Begin with a practitioner whose entire ethic and training is about a respectful non medicalized birth. Chances are that things will proceed that way. And if you look at the C-section rates of, midwives who have hospital births, they're lower than obstetricians who have hospital births, even controlling for medical.

Complications, and sometimes it's hard to compare those statistics, right? Because if you're separating out saying, oh, all the normal pregnancies go over here, and midwives take care of them, and all the high risk pregnancies go over here, you're gonna have a differential in your C-section rate.

But even controlling for those complications midwives do have, greater success at vaginal births. Yeah. I've heard stories of midwives or of birth deliveries where the midwife is, is really playing the bridge or the go between. The patient or the mother or the couple and the kind of the medical staff or the doctor.

Yes. They can do that also. Doulas can. Can play that role. And doulas are wonderful or can be wonderful at being that translator. And also so the doctor using their medical terminology, which, we tend to do, we're trained to get right to it. And we're also trained to look at a situation and assess, the 10 worst things that could possibly happen and then start.

Per performing interventions so that those things don't happen. That's just how we're trained. But a doula can be the recipient of that medical speak and then in a way, shield or protect the patient from that high stress in a presentation and explain in a more calming, soothing way. What are the.

What are the choices? What are the options at that time? So I'm a big fan of doulas. Had you decided to go to a hospital and do a hospital birth what would not have been available to you compared to giving births to your second and third child at home? Yeah. So Nico, my second child, he was born at my labor, lasted 90 minutes and it was a thunder and lightning storm.

Wow. Just a complete deluge of rain. And he came into the world with that energy just wow. And so it, if I'm thinking about it, if I had tried to go to a hospital, it would've just, the pace of that birth would've been so rushed, with recognizing that I was in labor and trying to get myself to a hospital and into a room and deliver him, it would've been a very different experience, but because I was able to be, stay relaxed and in my tub at home with my water and my candles and my relaxation music I was able to just let that process again, surrender to the force of that process and receive him, in a state of calm. Which was wonderful. And then funny enough, Sophia, my third was also born on a full moon. That was also a. Quite a quick labor. And I did have some medical intervention with her birth just in the sense that I had tested GBS positive, so I needed a dose of antibiotics. But so again, if I had gone to a hospital, there would've been all kinds of protocols about GBS and I would've probably had an IV placed.

But, with a midwife, I was able to just get the infusion and then be. Completely free, completely and unattached to any poles or tubing so that I was able to move my body, get into the positions that my body told me I needed to to form in order to allow her to pass through the birth canal.

I'm really. I feel very blessed that I had the training. I knew I felt confident. Let's just say I felt confident that I could relax and get out of my own way. Turn the experience over to my body and also to the care of my. Wonderful. Incredibly well-trained and experienced midwife who had, by the way, over her 30 year career, had delivered thousands of babies many fold, more than I ever delivered.

And just had such a deep wisdom and knowledge and understanding of the process and also of human psychology. She was really a master of just, with all of her patients keeping them calm, keeping them centered, and making them feel comfortable and supported. Yeah. Sounds like after thousands of deliveries, she was really a master at space holding.

Yeah. Space holding. That's a great way of putting it. And that's the role I think of that's the role of a birth attendant is to hold space for the woman to have her process. I wanna ask you, Jen so as a gynecologist now, what are situations that you've seen over the years where a patient will assume that an OB GYN will know certain realms like within their training, when in fact that's not really part of their training?

I remember speaking with you once about. Sexual pleasure and arousal and how, patients assume that their O-B-G-Y-N can respond to questions about a lack of pleasure or orgasm, and that it's actually a very small part of the training. Yeah, I think that is the prime example of something that OBGYNs are, NGY oncologists are really undertrained in the entire realm of understanding human sexuality, human sexual response, a pleasure, orgasm, all of those things.

And. It's just not emphasized, the, we know the anatomy, but I'm not sure that we are given a full understanding of the complexity of the, of. The intersection between the anatomy and the psychology or the entirety of the human experience. And we think very mechanistically and very anatomically there are precancerous cells on the cervix and so we think we should cut off.

The outer part of the cervix to remove the precancerous cells, and that seems very reasonable if you just think of the cervix as potential cancer germin, carrier. Yeah, sure. Yeah. But if you think of the cervix, as, some people call it like the X spot for or an orgasmic trigger.

Maybe you're not just gonna take a loop electrode and go cutting off a part of it, maybe. You are gonna think more about the full range and spectrum of options to dealing with those precancerous cells before you just go and remove them. And yeah I think that there are. A lot of things that we are really not taught in medical school residency, fellowship, that are deeply important to the lived experience of our patients.

That should be part of the conversations when we are counseling about risks, benefits, options, and alternatives for every single gynecologic procedure and condition. For listeners who do want to receive the support in that kind of integrated, holistic way. It sounds like the integrative women's clinic that you created with Flow was like that model.

And I'm guessing that there, I'm hoping that there're more models like that out here now than maybe there were just 10 or 20 years ago. Yeah, I think that there is an evolving consciousness within the medical community to look at, integrative practice to consider more about, sexual health, but.

I also think that there, there are just some things that a allopathic, western trained medical doctor is going to be good at and some things that they're not going to be good at. And I think that there is a lot of room for complimentary practitioners such as yourself to be that InBetween, to be that translator to, to help empower women to advocate for themselves to really support their voices in that conversation.

If there's any message that I really hope that our listeners today, absorb it, it's that, medical doctors come from one perspective. It's one, it's not the be all, end all. And I do believe that it needs to be carefully considered and balanced and filled out with some other voices to get a hole in complete picture.

And if something ever. Feels wrong. I really wanna encourage every every woman, every patient to to pursue answers, to, to pursue knowledge. From as many sources as it takes until you arrive at a an answer that aligns with that inner voice. It's so important, and that's what I always hoped my patients would do.

I never wanted to feel like I was directing them or pushing them or towards something that didn't feel fully aligned with who they are. Yeah. Yeah. I. I have a technical question, and that is, like last week I had Kelly Garza on who's the creator of Steamy Chick, the vaginal steaming company, and she shared that a turning point in her, like she recognized when she was, when there were a lot of articles about like by OBGYNs who were saying Don't vaginal steam that, like it becomes a liability for a doctor to recommend something that is not under the auspices of, I guess the a MA or, and I just wanted to clarify that, Jen, if something is if a woman is having heavy bleeding, is a hysterectomy recommended, because that's within the auspices of, what OBGYNs are trained for and vaginal steaming is not recommended because that isn't part of their training.

So she's absolutely correct and a lot of doctors I think are afraid to be perceived as approving of or advocating for anything that isn't within their. Purview, that isn't part of what we consider evidence-based medicine. But there are many healing traditions that work outside of that model.

And just because they are outside of that model, to me personally, I don't believe that it just automatically negates their value. That's not. The way I approach the world. So again I know that, I am an md I am trained in one way, and it is not the only way. Whenever I'm considering, I hear about something like vaginal steaming.

I think of, first of all I don't. Really care what I'll just be frank, like other MDs can think what they want to of me, it doesn't bother me. I have already stepped outside enough of that, straight and narrow path where their opinion of me is inconsequential, right?

Yeah, so I feel freed, liberated to give my honest and complete opinion on the matter. I don't feel confined out of fear, which is, reasonable. If you think about it, like if somebody has trained for decades to make money and support their family by practicing a certain way, and then if you lose your medical license because you are determined to be, practicing outside of the scope of your specialty, or you.

You lose your ability to support your family. So there's nothing wrong with that. But we just have to understand, where physicians are completely free to, to give their honest and true opinion on something and where they will hesitate and try not to stray into a realm where they could be accused of advocating for something that is not within the scope of their practice.

We also have to remember that. Women are coming to healers with a whole lifetime history. Sometimes of trauma. Often of trauma, of course. Sure. And if I really think about that one patient that I was just, calling, she had some trauma in her past and she had been re-traumatized by doctors, she was listening to her voice, which told her, stay away from medical doctors. They will hurt you. That's really unfortunate. And I think something that we as medical doctors need to remember that, we haven't always been the gentlest, we haven't always been the most respectful. And there are many people who approach us with a lot of hesitancy and skepticism, and that's just the truth.

We have to have some humility that our profession has been a part of some. Really unfortunate and sometimes even brutal things. So we have to understand that there are many reasons why a woman might be very hesitant to come see an OB, GYN and might feel more comfortable with an alternative practitioner.

And we have to do our best to stop that cycle of trauma and, to approach every time that we speak with a patient, touch a patient that it is, with active informed consent at every step. And that hasn't been part of the training for many MDs. Yeah. That brings us to your second book.

Consent, which I have right here. Oh, look at that. Yeah. Consent certainly within the medical profession is super important. I think people are so used to doctors. I took my mom to a podiatrist and the podiatrist started like removing a callus on her foot without even asking her, I think there's this, so just like even beyond contact, like engaging in, in a procedure.

But I wanna bring it to your book, which is really guided to support. Teens with kind of the sexual education that we never got. And that teens today, I think feel a real void around especially around consent and boundaries. I would love, 'cause I know the writing, the book was quite a process for you.

Can you share, Jen, what inspired you to write this book on consent and how was the journey for you? Yeah, it was quite the journey. And another one of those branching off points for me professionally. I was, trying to actually launch a tech company at the time with a wearable that was trying to address the issue of incapacitation, assault, particularly on college campuses.

And this is usually related to binge drinking or blackout drinking with alcohol. And and. As I go into in the book, somebody who is in a blackout does not ha or unconscious, does not have the capacity to give consent for any sexual activity. It struck me that here we are in the 21st century with no, with all of modern technology and no way to know if someone is too impaired to give consent.

And I just thought that is a real need. We should have a way of, of knowing if we think somebody is giving us consent to know are they actually capable of giving consent at this time? Because, we all have had experience with drunk people. Some people hold it together pretty well, even though they are absolutely in a blackout.

They will have no memory of any conversation that you're having with them at that moment. So I developed this wearable. During the course of my research and I was running focus groups with many teenagers and talking to them about the, what education had they had on the topic of consent, and I was just appalled at what I was hearing, that it was barely mentioned.

And it just deemphasized, most sex ed in America. When you have it at all, because there are many states where there is no sexual education required in the curriculum at all. So even when it is presented, the focus is really on, how to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.

Where, to me, like the most important thing, the fundamental like beginning. Place for any sexual activity needs to be the consent conversation. And that will naturally roll into conversation about what birth control method are we going to use, or what barrier method are we going to employ to, risk mitigate against STIs.

So it has to begin with consent, but consent is rare, so rarely even, mentioned. So hearing this, I was like, okay, what resources are out there? So I started looking at, the textbooks on the subject, and I would find a paragraph in the midst of, a 400 page book, a paragraph buried in the middle that talked about the importance of getting consent.

And I'm like no. This needs to be the beginning. And so I, I wrote the book, but on a personal level, it was incredibly transformative for me because I myself, am a survivor and I myself have had a lot of challenges finding my voice. So I am one of those. People, they talk about flight fight or freeze.

So I, my nervous system tends to go into freeze and I. Lock down, I lose the ability to to speak or articulate. And so for me, working through this in book form was so healing for my own internal journey of finding my voice and finding that, that healing, and we're talking about trauma that happened decades ago that I had held onto for so long.

And through this work I was finally able to release and let go and Wow. So I. Again, to your listeners it's possible. It's possible to heal after decades. I didn't know that it was going to be possible, but I can tell you that I am a different person than I was before I wrote that book. And it's funny, I felt during the writing of the book, I almost had the sensation of it being channeled at so times, where I would see.

On my computer screen that I had written, things that I knew were absolutely true, but would never have come to my conscious mind. It was as if it was the exactly the message that I needed to hear and I needed to learn and absorb coming out through my hands. So I was I was a student as much as the, a creator of that book.

Yeah. And it also sounds like in addition to being a student and the channel, the creator it. It brought you out of freeze and you found your voice. You found in writing the book and voicing the book for all, a teenage audience. You got to say what maybe your body has wanted to say for decades.

Yeah, that's so well put. I think that's exactly what happened. And, it's a book and a message that I so wish I had access to in my emerging sexuality. And I. I feel really blessed that the teens coming of age now, have access to, material like this.

And it's one of, I feel like this book was written shortly after the beginning of the Me Too movement. And I feel like since then there's just been a flood of wonderful. Resources coming online podcasts television series that explore the topic. It's so much more a part of our cultural conversation than it was just a handful of years ago.

Yeah. But coming back to your personal experience, Chen it, like when you share how you're a different person having written the book, what do you, I'm just curious, what do you notice within your beha? What did you mean when you said that? Because in my mind I'm like, okay. In situations where she may not have asserted her consent and boundaries.

Now she has such, it's like it's in your bones now. There's such, such an awareness around gray areas. What maybe may have seemed like gray areas. I'm curious what you meant by, like, how do you feel like you're a different person now? In what situations? In every way, but so I had a as you and I have talked about on a personal level I've had experiences with massage therapists where they have they have crossed boundaries in the, in my past and I went into freeze mode and and I was unable to say something at the time that it was happening, even though it was.

It's very upsetting to me and I would never see that therapist again once that boundary, had been crossed. Now. Have I been to a male massage therapist since? No, but I do feel like if I did and I felt like a boundary was being crossed, I just know that I would say something. I just know that my reaction would be different that I would speak up and advocate for myself, and I would be like, Hey, you know that's, this doesn't seem right.

Stop. And before I was trapped in this feeling like I didn't want to offend somebody, I didn't wanna make them uncomfortable. I would often put my own feelings aside, in service of their comfort. And, I did this sexually as well. I really was disrespectful of my own wants, needs and desires.

And I felt like often I had to turn over my body to the service of somebody else's agenda. And I just, I don't do that anymore. So that's a massive breakthrough for me personally. Yeah, that is huge. That is huge. I I love that you channeled the book that it came through you and that Yeah.

Something it's like your, you found your voice, as the book was being written and that it's resulted in this real. Real change in behavior and again, coming back to really listening to your body's authority and putting it in the driver's seat of what it experiences.

And it's really interesting as I'm hearing you summarize like that I just, I find it so striking that, here I am a. Empowered, highly educated professional who's used to giving orders, as I said before, running an operating room telling people exactly what I want and need, but when it came to my body and my own intimate space.

I, I couldn't find that voice. So I think it's really interesting to look at how we can have these completely different, sometimes conflicting personas. And yeah. Yeah. Being the boss in an OR did not serve me when it came to, honoring the integrity of my own body in a bedroom. If that makes sense. Oh, it totally makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. It's so fascinating. It's fascinating. Yeah. It would seem like a di dichotomy, but like one is a professional setting. And one is a setting that involves intimacy. And the way our touch receptors develop in intimate contact is very different than the way our voices, engage in a professional setting.

And. Once again, it's so wonderful that you reclaimed your voice with, through writing this book. Yeah. And to bring it back to, I'm just imagining, a woman in labor, on a labor floor. I see this all the time actually where women who are. Again, like educated, successful professionals who tend to get lots of different voices or integrate different sources of information in the rest of their lives when it comes to these incredibly crucial, important decisions about their own body.

It's like they go silent and they just turn it over to the professional. And I feel like there is a real conversation about how can we bring the consent conversation into those moments as well. So onto the labor floor. Into the GYN office when we're deciding how to address something like abnormal uterine bleeding, it's it's about, essentially respecting our own voices and remember that this is always. It must be an equal partnership, whether we're talking about the physician patient relationship or the or intimate partners, it's a partnership. It's, there's no turning over. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I would say in the medical scenario, I feel like what you described earlier, for example, of how you created a hypno C-section environment where that calm and that soothing, whether it's lights and sound, that has an effect as to whether a patient goes into a freeze response and kind of abdicates the authority of their body too.

The medical professional. Like what you described of your ri of the waves riding the waves with Sheila and being present in your body and being so attuned. It feels like your nervous system was so like down, regulated and present with the experience and it feels like, yeah.

Like the medical setting can be one where like all these kind of opportunities for calming the nervous system are actually flipped on its head. I agree. Yeah, Bri, bright lights, loud noises, alarming machines, strangers entering and exiting your space. It's all just puts you into the state of heightened stress response where actually for.

Optimal uterine muscle contraction. We need the parasympathetic nervous system to take over. We need to be in a state of relaxation for normal labor to take place. Yes, absolutely. Just hearing you say that, downregulates, I feel like more relaxed, just hearing you say that. Good. It's nighttime.

So maybe we could just drift off to sleep after. Exactly. Exactly. Jen, thanks so much for sharing your experience and your expertise and your perspective with us. I really appreciate you being here. I've so enjoyed our conversation as always, and I hope that someone heard something today that speaks to them and is helpful.

That's my wish.

Notice how this episode is landing in your body.

What sensations or feelings are present for you right now

if you've experienced pregnancy or birth? Is there anywhere your body would like to receive a loving touch, caress, or acknowledgement from you?

Or is there a story that this body area wants to share with you?

If your body is preparing or wanting to experience birth? Is there anywhere your body would like to have seed planted of intentions, attention, or communication? For a graceful and empowering experience,

and if you're the partner of someone who has given or wants to give birth, what might your body need to receive in support for the role you've provided or want to provide

 Thank you for listening to Your Body. Remembers Pleasure If this conversation supported you, the simple way to help this work reach more people is to leave a five star rating or a brief review. You'll also find more resources and teachings@rahichun.com. Until next time, take good care.