Episode 68 - Dr. Jeevan Singh: Somatic Womb Work and the Connection with Grief, Love, and Pleasure
Jeevan Singh (she/they) is a queer, Punjabi-Ecuadorian-Puerto Rican mother, poet, doctor of traditional East Asian medicine and mindfulness based somatic practitioner. In today's conversation, Jeevan and Josie discuss getting in touch with your soma in the context of resolving trauma, as well as exploring grief. Jeevan also talks about challenges and surprises in their own fertility journey and gives advice for queer folks trying to conceive.
[ID: A beige background and orange semi-circle. Text reads: The Intersectional Fertility Podcast Episode 68: Dr. Jeevan Singh @dr.jeevansingh and Josie Rodriguez-Bouchier @intersectionalfertility.]
Content Warning: brief mention of gun violence.
Visit Jeevan's website.
Follow Jeevan on Instagram.
Learn more about The Somatic Womb Path - Practitioner Certification Program through Womb School.
Learn more about Tending the Spirit - Group Offering for BIPOC Embodiment Waitlist.
Learn more about Sacred Fire - Mentorship for Visionary Healing Folks in Small Business.
Jeevan's 1:1 Healing Offerings.
Resources mentioned:
The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief by Francis Weller.
The Tao of Trauma: A Practitioner's Guide for Integrating Five Element Theory and Trauma Treatment by Alaine Duncan & Kathy Kain "a lot of what I'm practicing these days" -Jeevan.
Jeevan's dear friend Renee Sills who runs Embodied Astrology.
Centering Practice with Adrienne Maree Brown - comes from Richard Strozzi branch of somatics & generative somatics.
Episode Transcript:
Disclaimer: This is an automatically generated transcript edited to be more readable. It may not be 100% accurate.
[00:00:00] Josie: I'm Josie Rodriguez-Bouchier, and this is the Intersectional Fertility Podcast, where ideas and identities intersect to deepen our understanding of fertility and ultimately our Whole Selves.
[00:00:32] Hi friend, how are you doing? How are we all doing? It's been a lot lately, and I know that I myself have been in the throes of some pretty deep grief and stress and all the things, right? I've been pretty glued to social media and various news outlets, and yeah, it's a lot right now, and I just want to check in and make sure y'all are doing okay.
[00:01:01] You know, I really am thinking about you and this community and how this is affecting all of us as queer folks, and especially as queer BIPGM. And then especially, you know, those of us who are on a fertility journey and how that's affecting everything, you know, how the world events are affecting that as well.
[00:01:23] So I really hope today can provide you with some comfort, a pause, a break in your day that can give you some nourishment and some love and some uplifting, you know, energy that can help you get through the rest of your day. This conversation with Jeevan is beautiful and we talk a lot about grief and pleasure and how they're related which I think is so interesting.
[00:01:51] Something I've been seeing over and over on social media is how folks are, you know, not only meeting with lots of grief and in relationship with lots of grief right now, but also kind of in touch with This overwhelming feeling of love with the world and people who are really showing up and taking action and doing things.
[00:02:11] So yeah, it feels big right now. It feels like both of those energies are really strong. So interesting that we kind of touched on that in this episode today as well. So I hope that that can bring you some joy and some comfort and some you know, hopefully just some help to, to deal with all of these really complex and big feelings that we're all having right now.
[00:02:35] If you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you might remember that I used to ask every guest the same question at the end of the episode, which was do you have any practices that allow you to connect with your essence or your Whole Self? And I used to ask that. Every episode and I still am asking it, but it's actually, the answer to those questions from each guest now live in my paid Qmunity where you can listen to extra bonus podcast content.
[00:03:04] So I really hope that you all take advantage of that and come listen to these incredible answers that folks are giving to that question. And they're also answering kind of another variation on that question, which I've been asking folks, like, what is your essence? If you had to choose, like, a song or a color or you know, an element of nature or a food or a celebrity, you know, whatever it is.
[00:03:29] And folks have been coming up with just the most lovely, wonderful, bonkers answers. And there's such good ones. So I really hope that you will come over to our paid community and listen to this extra bonus content. So after this episode or during while you're listening, you can come on over to our Qmunity.
[00:03:48] You can go to my website, intersectionalfertility.com and just click on Qmunity, which is spelled with a Q for queer plus community. It's also in the link in my bio of my Instagram @intersectionalfertility. So. In both of those places, you can choose to join the free Qmunity or the paid Qmunity and both are great.
[00:04:09] The extra podcast content lives in the paid community, which is $26 a month, and you can cancel at any time. And you'll also, with that paid subscription, get access to a library of fertility webinars that I've taught once a month over the past few months and will continue to teach so you'll get access to all of those, as well as monthly coffee hours like I said that extra podcast bonus content and some bloopers are usually in there as well, which is really fun, So lots of good stuff.
[00:04:41] So head on over to intersectionalfertility.com, click on Qmunity and come join us. I will hope to see you over there and we can always continue the conversation from all of these episodes. Oh, and something I didn't mention is the video version of all of these episodes exists within our Qmunity.
[00:04:59] , And that's actually in the free Qmunity. So you can watch these episodes if you'd like as well. And then you can also enable closed captions, I believe. So if you, if that's helpful for you, you can read along with what we're saying and, and watch the video as well. So enjoy today's episode. Sending you so much love, and comfort and just, I wish I could just give out hugs over the microphone.
[00:05:25] If I could, I would give you a big hug. Yeah. And I just, I love, I love this community so much and I hope that we can really stick together and stay strong and, comfort each other and be there for each other as we go through all of this. All right, enjoy today's episode and I'll see you all over in the Qmunity.
[00:05:56] Dr. Jeevan Singh is a queer, Punjabi-Ecuadorian-Puerto Rican, mother, poet, doctor of traditional East Asian medicine and mindfulness based somatic practitioner. Her work locates itself at the intersections of politicized somatics, earth based medicines, integrative mental health, and the world of the womb and pelvic bowl.
[00:06:20] She is honored to support her clients and communities in their movement toward their embodiment, towards reclaiming pleasure and deep rest, toward cultivating radical self compassion, and body friendship. Ooh, what a great term. And remembering that our healing is healing for the collective.
[00:06:38] When not offering one on one sessions or group offerings, Jeevan can be found in her kitchen having spontaneous dance parties with her young toddler and partner, cooking ancestral foods, journaling, dreaming into her next herb and flower garden, and feeling so ready for new travels to come.
[00:06:58] Oh, that's so beautiful. I love that. Welcome to the podcast.
[00:07:04] Jeevan: Thank you for having me, Josie.
[00:07:06] Josie: Absolutely. Such an honor. I love that we're both Pisces acupuncturists.
[00:07:14] Jeevan: Right? I love that.
[00:07:17] Josie: What are the odds, queer Pisces acupuncturists?
[00:07:21] Jeevan: There must be like a group or we can start like a Facebook group for queer Pisces acupuncturists.
[00:07:29] Josie: I love it. So what is the story that led you to do the work that you do as a doctor of East Asian medicine? And how does somatic womb work and mindfulness fit into that?
[00:07:41] Jeevan: It really started with my Saturn return. As we're talking about astrology, and I actually didn't find out until later that my Saturn is in the 8th house, which is apparently the house of sex and death. It's related to Scorpio energy.
[00:08:02] And that was my late 20s. It was just, yeah, I had a series of pretty traumatic events happen from getting held up at gunpoint twice, to a rollover accident in the car. All within the span of two years, exactly in that Saturn return time.
[00:08:32] It was just such a rich time. Of really getting real with myself and with life and the preciousness of life. And asking myself. Like, who am I? And what do I actually want to be doing? What do I actually want to spend this lifetime doing? Right? And I was on track to doing like an MFA in creative writing, I had a degree in English, and I taught high school for a little while.
[00:09:13] Very quickly learning, that I don't do well in institutional settings. So I had always said that if I had a second lifetime, I would pursue natural medicine. And that's what I did. I went to school actually at a naturopathic college that also has a Chinese medicine program. And I chose Chinese medicine because it felt compared to naturopathy, it felt really familiar to me as a person of South Asian ancestry.
[00:09:47] And I really resonated. With this, yeah, traditional indigenous medicine of East Asia. Yeah. So I went and did a doctorate in East Asian medicine. And while I was in school, I started a practice in body work. So I was like in my second year of school, I started my body work practice. I already knew I wanted to specialize in womb work.
[00:10:15] And here I was doing these sessions with clients, and they were having really big emotional cathartic releases on the table. And I did not know what to do with it.
[00:10:28] Josie: Right. Yeah.
[00:10:30] Jeevan: Back then, like, say the word trauma and I was like, not interested. I was like, I like didn't know anything about trauma. I didn't know how to hold space for big emotions. I didn't feel proficient in it. I was just kind of like jumping, diving into the deep end with people and didn't really feel like I had the skills. So, they started that same year a mental health program at my school, which is based in mindfulness based psychotherapeutic principles and a modality called the Hakomi Method.
[00:11:11] Josie: Oh, yeah, I know about that. Mm hmm.
[00:11:14] Jeevan: Yeah, so I've been studying that for the last eight years and got a degree in integrative mental health. And so those two pieces really inform my work.
[00:11:26] Josie: Nice. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah. One of my best friends practices that method as well. Yeah. I've heard such good things about it.
[00:11:38] And not to keep drawing parallels between us, but I was also an English major.
[00:11:42] Jeevan: What? I love that.
[00:11:45] Josie: That's funny. Yeah. Creative writing I majored in. That's so funny.
[00:11:51] Jeevan: It makes sense, right? Like ancient Chinese medicine doctors were poets, like scholars and poets.
[00:11:57] Josie: Right? I know. That's what I have felt with studying Chinese medicine is that it's so deeply poetic and beautiful and like, it's just so rich with yeah, it just felt inspiring to study and I always felt like writing, like it was inspiring my creativity, this medicine. It's probably a disproportionate amount of Pisces in this field.
[00:12:26] Jeevan: Us feeling, healing people.
[00:12:32] Josie: Yes. Exactly. Exactly. That's awesome. And then will you expand on what, somatic womb work is? What is that?
[00:12:43] Jeevan: I feel like I ask myself this often. My own self, because it's a term that I made up, like, a few years ago. My dear friend Renee Sills runs Embodied Astrology.
[00:13:00] Yeah, and they're also this, like, magical queer person who does embodiment work and as that intersects with astrology.
[00:13:11] Josie: Oh my gosh, I want to know more about that too.
[00:13:14] Jeevan: Yes, Renee is incredible and I got a chance to be on their podcast and I needed a term to encapsulate the work that I was doing that really pulled from somatics and mindfulness and East Asian medicine and the pelvic bowl.
[00:13:33] That somatic womb work was what I landed on after many different, trying on many different words. So somatic womb work to me is a way of approaching the womb, a way of approaching the pelvic bowl that really takes in the whole person and really holds the layers, the multiple truths and layers of experience that might be living within our pelvic bowls and wombs.
[00:14:10] And so what I mean by this is that in somatics, we believe and understand that all of our life experiences have happened through our bodies. It's not a separate process. And so our thoughts happen through our bodies, our beliefs, our emotions, how we relate to the world, to each other, to ourselves. And I would go so far as to even saying ancestral memories live in our bodies.
[00:14:41] And so taking that lens and applying it to a specific place in the body, the pelvic bowl. What happens when we approach our wombs, understanding that there may be beliefs and memory and emotion and unprocessed energies that we're holding here. How do we relate differently than to ourselves?
[00:15:13] Josie: Yeah. So it's almost like the pelvic bowl or the womb is its own entity or its own soma.
[00:15:23] Jeevan: Yes, totally. Like a microsoma.
[00:15:25] Josie: Yeah, yeah. Soma within a soma. Yeah.
[00:15:28] Jeevan: Totally. And, and, you know, looking through like the chakra system and through Chinese medicine, like both traditional systems of medicine say that this is the root, this is the base, the foundation of our body, of our energy body. So it feels like a foundational Fundamental place to be holding with people.
[00:15:55] Josie: Totally. Totally. Yeah. I love that. That makes so much sense. You talk a lot about grief and pleasure, which I love. What do you think these two energies have in common and how do they show up in the body and or in your work? And do you think they're connected to each other?
[00:16:17] Jeevan: Yeah, I absolutely see them not only as connected, but as inseparable as spring and autumn. So as an, an acupuncturist yourself I feel like one of the many gifts of East Asian medicine is returning us, inviting us back into the seat of the web of life, which is that we can't not be connected.
[00:16:55] Like we were, that is our birthright as we were born into this world and into this body and life to be in connection with everyone and everything around us and the seasons and five element wheel of Chinese medicine is such a beautiful illustration of that we cannot have winter without autumn.
[00:17:19] We cannot have spring without winter. There is no summer without spring, and it goes around, and they all, they all support one another. And so, through that lens, grief is associated with autumn. If we look to the other side of autumn, if we kind of look, yeah, across the seasons to the other side, we have spring and this new life emerging and these ancient Chinese medicine texts telling us to walk through the courtyard with their hair down and do soft like flowers.
[00:18:00] And I can't think of anything more pleasurable than like those first warm breezes of spring and the flowers blooming. Totally. And so I don't, right? Yeah. Yeah. And even like a little baby, like, oh, there's so much like pleasure in holding this, this like new life, this bundle, the fullness of new life.
[00:18:23] So I see grief and. Pleasure existing on this wheel of the seasons. Yeah. And that our capacity to hold one expands our capacity to hold the other. Mm.
[00:18:42] Josie: Wow. Yeah. Totally.
[00:18:43] Jeevan: Really be with our grief. Really, like, really allow ourselves to carve out space for the grief. Mm hmm. In the first place. More space for the pleasure.
[00:18:54] Josie: Right, yeah, that's so interesting. I've never thought about that before with how they, kind of overlaying that, you know transition of the seasons over that and that connection. I was thinking about to how summer. As real, you know, related to joy and how that goes into fall, which is grief and it's like, Oh, that actually makes sense.
[00:19:18] I think joy and pleasure can also kind of be connected in that way. So it's like, yeah, like having that joy means that there's always going to be that shadow of grief, you know, that possibility of grief there, you know, or having that pleasure. Yeah, it's, it's so connected. You're right. It's all like, you can't have one without the other.
[00:19:40] Jeevan: Totally. Yeah, there's a beautiful book about grief called The Wild Edge of Sorrow. Have you heard of it?
[00:19:47] Josie: No, I love that title.
[00:19:49] Jeevan: Oh, it's like one long poem. It's so beautiful. I think you would love it. And yeah, the first opening pages, the author talks about exactly this, that grief and love are. Like, two sides of the same thing. That we, we grieve because we love.
[00:20:12] Josie: Right. Right. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. That's interesting. What is the name of that book, so folks can write it down?
[00:20:20] Jeevan: It's called The Wild Edge of Sorrow.
[00:20:24] Josie: The Wild Edge of Sorrow. I love that. What a great title. that's so interesting. And I've never really contemplated the relationship of grief to pleasure.
[00:20:34] So that's an interesting kind of twist besides the grief and love connection, there is that grief and pleasure connection as well. Yeah.
[00:20:43] Jeevan: And I'm even thinking about like orgasms, right? And like the way, like heaving orgasmic quality is like really crying. Right. And the way that your diaphragm moves.
[00:20:56] And then, during an orgasm, like, the pelvic floor and the diaphragm and the way that that there, like, there's, like, that quaking, right? But that is a different kind of, yeah, that's, like, pleasure and grief might have kind of parallel experiences.
[00:21:14] Josie: Totally. And sometimes an orgasm can, like, lead to crying. Is that what, like? It's like, it can access that grief in a whole different way. Yeah. Yeah, that's so interesting. So what are some things folks can do to increase their fertility from the perspective of a somatic womb practice?
[00:21:40] Jeevan: Yeah, some of the tangible things that I do with clients who are wanting to increase fertility are things like castor oil packs over the womb. Steaming, pelvic steaming together as ritual and as like fertility ritual, but also as this very tangible, supportive practice for womb health, and self massage.
[00:22:09] And I guess what makes all of that somatic and not just womb work is really getting to slow down and tune into the body. And be receptive to the stories that the body might share as we're doing these practices.
[00:22:26] Josie: Mm. Interesting. And how, what would that look like if your body was sharing a story, what would that look like or what would you do?
[00:22:35] Jeevan: It happens a lot, right? Like, maybe I'll have my hands over somebody's womb if we're, Just like holding their womb and I'll just guide them into some mindful awareness and they'll start to notice, Oh, there's some, I don't know, like clenching happening in my shoulders right now. So we just stay with that and then it turns into a story of like, Oh, I'm carrying so much.
[00:23:08] Like, I feel this weight on my shoulders, not just that, this is my mother's weight, this is how my mother carries too much. Which brings me back to this other piece of somatic womb work being inherently relational. Because our first relationships were in the womb. Right. Our very first relationship, like, so intimate to be in somebody's body, like, holy moly.
[00:23:40] Whether, whether or not that's the person who raises us, like, that's a relationship that happens in utero.
[00:23:48] Josie: For sure. Yeah.
[00:23:50] Jeevan: And so, so yeah, that, that's the kind of thing that can sometimes unfold as we're working together. And I guess I'll just add really quick, my practice has really taken a turn since my own birth of my child into trauma healing more than it ever has before.
[00:24:11] It's always been trauma informed and now it's really going towards trauma resolution work. And so when we work with the body in this way of slowing down and getting mindful and tuning into the nervous system, things just start to emerge that our cognitive minds might not be aware of, but our bodies remember, right?
[00:24:37] So like I've had sessions where suddenly I'm like back on the operating table of the C section that I had. And it's like, Oh, my body, I'm feeling my legs freeze and my body wants to move through this experience. So that it can have some resolution. And so I would say, like, really my, my practice has really been going in this direction with trauma healing.
[00:25:04] And it's something that's very mysterious in the sense that we can't anticipate what's going to happen until we're doing it. But also so profound and necessary.
[00:25:17] Josie: Yeah, totally. Yeah. I love this extra level of looking at womb work and womb healing through not just doing the practices of the Castor oil pack and the self massage and, you know, but, but really paying attention to what Stories come up in your body and what sensations are happening and why, and what that, what your body is trying to communicate.
[00:25:44] Jeevan: Absolutely. And the big difference here is that instead of me like asking your mind, like, what do you think this is about? Because the mind will come up with all sorts of stories that may or may not be relevant by slowing the process down. Which grief and pleasure ask us to slow down, be with them, right?
[00:26:09] Like by slowing down together, we can actually start to get under the surface of our conscious awareness into some of what is actually happening in the body, because the body don't lie. Right. We know that, right? Like, when we go to the body, it's a very direct storyteller.
[00:26:31] Josie: Yeah, wow. And how do you do that? Like, I feel like I would just want to, I would want to intellectualize it. So quickly, like that's hard to do.
[00:26:44] Jeevan: Totally, that's part of the skill. And that is really, again, why, like in the beginning, the first half of my practice, I was using a lot of mindfulness and realized that was so many of my clients, especially my clients of color that it was really hard to get mindful.
[00:27:05] Because getting mindful, feeling your body means also potentially feeling the chronic pain that's there, the emotional pain, the pain of being a body impacted by racism and ancestral trauma, and so it's not easy.
[00:27:25] So much of my work right now is just bridging, like helping create that bridge together between self and this kind of embodied awareness. And I have clients that can, like, that's what's so incredible, Josie, like, yeah, even right now, like three months of working together, and also clients I've had for years who weren't able to feel below their neck, who can now feel themselves, and now that they can feel themselves, we can start to dip into these kind of deeper layers of the story. The body's ready to share.
[00:28:07] Josie: Wow. That's so wild. We were just, I was just talking about this concept with my guest from the last episode with Umu and we were talking about that, how some folks can't feel from below the neck. Like the neck down. Yeah.
[00:28:22] Jeevan: Exactly. So many people.
[00:28:24] Josie: Yeah. It's quite common.
[00:28:26] Jeevan: I would say like 70 percent of the people that come in either have trouble accessing or have trouble staying. Staying there. Most of us were not taught how to listen to our bodies or feel our bodies. In fact, quite the opposite.
[00:28:45] Josie: Totally quite the opposite. Yeah.
[00:28:48] Jeevan: Like, nope, the mind's like, yeah, it's like. There's a hierarchy of the mind over the heart and the body.
[00:28:57] Josie: Right. Yeah, we have to relearn how to integrate our entire Whole Self, our whole being into who we are and what we're going to do and listen to the communication that our body is offering and all of that. Yeah.
[00:29:15] Jeevan: Yes, I remember watching my child when they were just like, I don't know, seven or eight months old and the way that their emotions expressed through their whole body. They get excited and like kick their arms and legs out, laugh or something. And I don't know, at some point, I even see it now at two years old, there's like this process that starts to happen of like containing a little bit more.
[00:29:45] Josie: Totally, totally. Yeah.
[00:29:49] Jeevan: And now with so many people kind of recognizing their own neurodivergence, I feel like there's a big, like, unmasking process happening collectively. Or maybe people get to regain some of this relationship with their body without shaming around it.
[00:30:08] Josie: Right. Yeah. There's like more of a movement around that, like especially in like disability justice communities and yeah.
[00:30:18] Jeevan: So beautiful.
[00:30:19] Josie: Yeah, it is so beautiful and so important. Cause yeah, we just, we get so conditioned from so early to leave our bodies or sometimes it's like a necessity for us to survive in order to. Yeah.
[00:30:36] Jeevan: Totally, that's, that's exactly right. And I really try to frame it that way for my clients. Like your body did exactly what it needed to. To keep you safe.
[00:30:49] Josie: Right, exactly.
[00:30:52] Jeevan: And now we get to kind of update it a little bit to start to work through some of what might have happened.
[00:31:02] Josie: Right, right, totally. Ugh, what powerful work you do. Oh my goodness.
[00:31:10] Jeevan: Thank you. I love it.
[00:31:12] Josie: I can tell, I can tell. Do you, are you able to offer anything virtually for folks, for you to like walk through folks doing things to themselves or is it, does it need to be in person?
[00:31:27] Jeevan: Yeah, I do both virtual and in person work. And it's a little different virtually because my hands aren't there. So it's really utilizing a person's own hands. Right. Which can actually be huge. With like, practicing consent. Totally. Of like, Just even with your own hands and asking, it's okay to put my hands here.
[00:31:51] Josie: Yes, I love that. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. That's, that's great. Cause I'm sure some folks listening are thinking, how can I do this and work with you and, and experience this kind of approach to healing? That's awesome.
[00:32:09] Jeevan: Yeah and something you and even your audience might be interested in is another book named The Tao of Trauma by Alaine Duncan, who is a long time, she studied somatic experiencing for decades and is also an acupuncturist who has worked doing trauma healing through, Chinese medicine for decades.
[00:32:32] And I am really, like, leaning on that work so heavily right now, and it's essentially, like, Yeah, it's trauma healing somatic work. That is really powerful, and yeah, the book alone is like so beautiful.
[00:32:50] Josie: Nice. And say that, is it the Tao of, what is it?
[00:32:54] Jeevan: Yeah, The Tao of Trauma by Alaine Duncan.
[00:32:56] Josie: The Tao of Trauma. Okay. And Alaine Duncan. Oh, that sounds amazing. And I want to check that out because I feel like a lot of more mainstream trauma resources are mostly from written from the perspective of cis white men.
[00:33:14] So, yeah, I'm always searching and looking for other. Yeah, so that sounds great. I'll have to check that out. Yeah.
[00:33:22] Jeevan: Yeah.
[00:33:23] Josie: Let's see, would you be willing to share the story of your fertility journey? Especially like as a queer person of the global majority. And is there anything that you wish you would have known going into it or is there anything that you would do differently in the future?
[00:33:40] Jeevan: Wow. I love this question. And yeah, I would love to share a little bit about our journey. So I met my partner nine years ago, and in very queer fashion, a week into our relationship, they were like, let's have babies! I was like, slow it down. And meanwhile, all of our straight friends, like U-hauled and we waited a year, which felt like a long time since we've been together.
[00:34:10] Josie: It is a long time!
[00:34:11] Jeevan: We're like, we're really taking our time. So I was in grad school for what felt like forever and kept saying, when I'm done with school, then we can try for a baby. And during that time, we actually approached one of my partner's family members. My partner is Cambodian and Southeast Asian, and one of their family members agreed to be our donor.
[00:34:39] Josie: Wow. That's amazing.
[00:34:42] Jeevan: That was so amazing to be able to have that option. And so school ended, and I started really doing my fertility prep, seeing a naturopath, going to acupuncture, getting on herbal formulas. And as I was deep in this process we got this, like, donor's sperm tested and stuff. We were like, we're just like two months away from starting. He dropped the bomb that he couldn't do it anymore.
[00:35:17] Josie: Oh no. Yeah.
[00:35:20] Jeevan: Yeah. His partner, they're a straight couple, felt It just didn't feel right for her. And that was so heartbreaking.
[00:35:32] Josie: I bet. I bet.
[00:35:35] Jeevan: Wow. Yeah, that was so hard. And yeah, you know, there's not, we don't know that many like Southeast Asian people with sperm. They're slim picking. When you are a person of the global majority looking at sperm banks. And that felt really important to us. And especially to me as a mixed race person, I was like, Oh, I want our child to really have this direct, like, connection to their cultural lineage. So then it took about six months.
[00:36:12] And we found our second donor, who was just this, like, beautiful gay man. And he wasn't Southeast Asian, he was part black and Japanese. So we're like, okay, Asian, close enough! Going out, like, further and further, like, okay, well, you're part Asian, that's cool. And you're also, like, beautiful and magical and witchy and really young.
[00:36:40] He was, like, totally on board and we were all so excited. And he had just moved to New York City from Portland. And yeah, he was supposed to fly out so we could get started. And that was March of 2020.
[00:36:58] Josie: No. Oh my god.
[00:37:01] Jeevan: You can imagine. That all the flights were cancelled because pandemic was started that month. And there is no way to get to one another.
[00:37:14] Josie: Dang. Wow.
[00:37:17] Jeevan: Big loss again. And we tried the shipping with sperm. That did not work. In fact, side note, we have a friend, queer friend, who got that shipped sperm analyzed and it was like totally not alive anymore. So I don't know that really shipping works from that far away.
[00:37:39] Maybe if you're on the same coast. I don't know.
[00:37:41] Josie: Right, wow. Ugh.
[00:37:44] Jeevan: Another six months. Goes by, and that donor, we're getting close, and we're like, we'll fly to you, so you don't have to come out here. It's in the late summer of 2020, and he was just going through such a hard time that he couldn't be our donor. And that felt like, yeah, such a huge loss.
[00:38:10] Yeah. And so at that point, we're just like, oh my gosh, who do we, who do we even ask? And in the fall of 2020. In the midst of these really intense wildfires here in Oregon and all across the West Coast. Mm hmm. My partner thought of like a friend that they had who is just like a really special person.
[00:38:37] He is Indigenous Mexican and an activist and an artist. And I guess he hadn't really thought about him since he's not Asian. But, yeah, Touk, my partner, asked him, and we're very open about our donor, and he said yes. He was like, yes, I'll be your donor, and we're like, okay, well, we have somebody in Portland who we both respect, who, this is like a really special human being, and So the next month we tried and I got pregnant on the first try.
[00:39:18] Josie: Ugh, amazing. Amazing. That's so great. I'm so glad that worked out. And that's your little one now.
[00:39:29] Jeevan: And that's my little one who weirdly, hilariously looks like a carbon copy of our donor. It's so funny. But it's like, they're still their own person. Yeah, it's really sweet because then we get to know, they get to have a relationship like they hang out maybe like once a season or three times a year.
[00:39:50] Yeah, really gets to know everyone they come from.
[00:39:54] Josie: Yeah, I love that. Oh, that's so cool. Yay. So I wonder, yeah, I, I've kind of, I wanted to ask what were some challenges that you faced and what were some joyful or beautiful moments? So we've kind of talked about both, but is there anything more to say around either of those?
[00:40:12] Jeevan: Yeah, I would say definitely everything I named was, was the challenge.
[00:40:17] Josie: Right, right.
[00:40:19] Jeevan: One of the most beautiful moments and something that I would offer somebody who might be going a fertility rollercoaster. Let's be real. Is that I built an altar to my grief and I put the photo of our second donor on there who I was really like grieving around the loss of.
[00:40:43] Yeah. And, and took like a month to really like tend to this altar of my grief. I made a physical altar. And I would sit in front of it and let myself breathe and that felt like it really opened a way for our third and last donor to be the one. Wow.
[00:41:06] Josie: Yeah. Oh, that's beautiful. Yeah.
[00:41:11] Jeevan: And also what's coming to mind is just that connection in Chinese medicine between our hearts and our wombs.
[00:41:19] Josie: Yes, the Bao Mai.
[00:41:21] Jeevan: Exactly, the Bao Mai. And so yeah, the two, like, tending both is so important.
[00:41:29] Josie: Gosh, what a beautiful practice to build an altar to your grief or for your grief, and to allow yourself to really feel it and be with it and have a physical space to carve that out. That feels so important.
[00:41:48] And so healing, like I'm just thinking of certain scenarios for myself. I'm thinking, I feel like a lot of times I wasn't able to grieve certain things. And I think that stopped me from moving forward, you know?
[00:42:02] So it's like, oftentimes if I'm trying to move forward in a certain way and I'm getting stuck, I'll notice like, Oh, there's some undealt with grief here that I need to address that will hopefully open up that portal, you know, to, to continue, you know, kind of moving forward. Was that kind of similar to what you experienced?
[00:42:27] Jeevan: Oh, absolutely. And it's really that like, yeah, I think underlying all of this is holding the belief that to feel it is to heal it. Right. And that's something, Like as we're able to, as we're ready to kind of move through the process. And sometimes that can take a month, and sometimes that can take years, right? Or even a lifetime, and each body gets to take its own piece in that.
[00:43:03] Josie: Totally, yeah. It's, it can be such a different timeline for everybody, yeah.
[00:43:08] Jeevan: Yeah, exactly.
[00:43:10] Josie: For sure. And I'm wondering, do you have any other advice or encouragement or words of wisdom for queer, trans, or non-binary listeners who may be currently trying to conceive or may be soon, especially those who are BIPGM?
[00:43:30] Jeevan: Yeah, I guess first of all, I just want to offer that I see you and I see the just like real hurdles that we have in this whole process. And I also see like how brave and radical and like beautiful it is for you to be you and to be like making family. And it's so in this way, it's so, yeah, it's so, so, so beautiful.
[00:44:03] And I guess in terms of offering advice, I feel like we hold so much on our own through this process, that to have somebody there, right? There's all the medical appointments and all the, all the things to do and the supplements and practices, but to actually have somebody who can hold the space with you, right?
[00:44:32] Who can really be with you in all of your experience feels really important so you don't have to do the whole thing by yourself.
[00:44:40] Josie: Totally. Totally. And it doesn't have to be a partner. It can be anybody.
[00:44:46] Jeevan: It could be a practitioner, it could be your community, it could be a close group of friends. But you aren't alone. You deserve to be held.
[00:45:00] Josie: Yes. You deserve to be held. Yeah. I love that. Ah, beautiful. I'm thinking, let's see, I think I skipped a question and I wonder if you have anything to say on what was your biggest surprise from becoming a parent?
[00:45:18] Jeevan: Oh, yeah. My biggest surprise was actually how easy it is right now.
[00:45:26] Josie: Oh, amazing. That's not what I thought you were going to say.
[00:45:30] Jeevan: Yeah. I know. That's why you're surprised. I'm surprised. I think I'm just like, I had such a traumatic childhood that I was like, Oh my gosh, and saw my parents so stressed out and really thought like, wow, having children must be so unbelievably hard. It must be so hard to like, I don't know, have to constantly be present for somebody else.
[00:45:58] Right. And I'm not saying it's not exhausting. Or that I haven't slept through the night in two years, but that's hard. That's really hard for me, but, but the actual, like being, slowing down and being with my child and witnessing them and like taking joy and just being with them, that is like, so easy.
[00:46:24] It's so easy to love them, to like, bask in them. I was really surprised by what yeah, what like a fun journey this would be.
[00:46:37] Josie: Oh, that's so cool.
[00:46:40] Jeevan: Yeah. Talk to me in like 10 years, when we're getting into adolescence, and I may have a different story, but right now, right now, it's just, yeah, it's just really so special.
[00:46:55] And, yeah.
[00:46:57] Josie: I love that. That's so cool. I love that. And I think that it really speaks to your ability also to be able to slow down and be in that moment and to be mindful. Like, I think for some folks that's really challenging, but. It seems like that you really like excel at that, or you're able to really yeah, just really embrace that, that presence in the moment and that slowness.
[00:47:24] And cause I find that that was challenging for me was slowing down so much was just like, Oh my gosh, I feel like I'm walking through molasses when I, you know?
[00:47:36] Jeevan: Like literally with like a toddler, you're like, Why are we walking through molasses right now?
[00:47:42] Josie: Yeah, I'd be like, okay, let's like pick up the pace, let's do something else, you know. And I'm like not a, you know, restless person necessarily, like I can slow down and I can be still, but that was a whole nother level of slowing down and being still. Yeah.
[00:48:00] Jeevan: Yeah. Yes. I feel like becoming a parent has brought me such a deep respect for children that I didn't have before out of my own wounding. Yeah. That, like, children are so close to nature and to the Tao. But they, like, really embody so much wisdom in that way for us, right? That they're so inherently anti-capitalist. And anti white supremacy. They're just such, like, incredible teachers.
[00:48:33] Josie: Yes! Totally. I think that's so true that kids are so inherently anti capitalist because they don't even know that they're in that system yet. And they're like, I don't care that we have to be on time. Like I want to try to put my own shoes on.
[00:48:50] Jeevan: Exactly.
[00:48:51] Josie: And you're like, we had to be there 10 minutes ago and we don't have time for this. And it's like, what's time? Like they don't care.
[00:48:59] Jeevan: Totally. They're like, we're going to the doctor walking down the street. This is going to be a 20 minute walk down one block because I have to pick up every leaf.
[00:49:10] Josie: Exactly. They have to commune with nature on the way. Yeah.
[00:49:14] Jeevan: Exactly, exactly. Like, wow, the world, like in that way, like the pandemic was really so childlike, right? In a sense of like, really, like slowing us down and bringing us back into a different kind of time zone.
[00:49:32] Josie: Absolutely. That's so true. Yeah. Oh, I love it. Okay. I'm glad I asked you that question. I wanted to circle back to that. I'm glad I did.
[00:49:43] And so how can people find you and support you and buy all your things and work with you if that's an option?
[00:49:50] Jeevan: Yeah. I think the first way that might be really exciting is to check out my collaboration, wombschool.com, which, yeah, which I do with two other people who are so phenomenal and just, oh, they're like, they're so wise and brilliant.
[00:50:11] And so we lead a nine month Training for practitioners in somatic womb work and space holding.
[00:50:18] Josie: Oh, cool. Okay.
[00:50:19] Jeevan: And so if you are a practitioner, healer really it's open to any kind of person who works with people that that will be starting again in the springtime. And then if you're wanting to do some one on one or healing work together, I offer both one-on-one work virtually and in person as well as group.
[00:50:45] I'm going to be starting up a new cycle of a group called Tending the Spirit, a group for BIPOC embodiment and emotional resiliency. Yeah, weaving together the wisdom of Chinese medicine with trauma healing and that kind of Taoist trauma work that I was naming, so that we can, yeah, start to feel ourselves.
[00:51:13] And also like really leverage the power of being in a group space and group process together. So that will be coming in the new year. And then one last piece, I'll just, I have so many, I have like so many different offerings, is that I, once a year I also offer something for practitioners that is about tending to our businesses through an embodied, just, yeah, like, let's change shit by doing, let's like really turn all these systems upside down and find a new way of doing business together.
[00:51:54] And that's called Sacred Fire. Yeah. And that's really fun. We take like a flower essence together every month. There's calls every month.
[00:52:05] Josie: I love the little growl.
[00:52:09] Jeevan: Everything's on the website and feel free to drop into my Instagram. It's @dr.jeevansingh and yeah, I just love to hear from people. If you want to reach out and there's something that struck you about this conversation or that you have questions about. You are welcome to reach out.
[00:52:32] Josie: Cool. And say the website, I don't think we actually heard the actual website.
[00:52:36] Jeevan: Oh yeah. My website is jeevansingh.com
[00:52:39] Josie: Okay. Perfect. And I'll include that in the show notes as well for folks to access. Beautiful. And then I don't think I, I meant to check in at the beginning and ask where you're calling in from, you're in Portland?
[00:52:52] Jeevan: Yeah, I'm in Portland, Oregon. The ancestral lands of the Chinook people.
[00:52:58] Josie: Okay, nice. So that would be for folks wondering where the one on one session would be in Portland, Oregon. Okay.
[00:53:07] Jeevan: Nice. Yes. And I work in a predominantly queer, trans led clinic in Portland, which is really sweet.
[00:53:15] Josie: Oh, that's amazing. Okay. That's great for folks to know. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I loved this conversation.
[00:53:26] Jeevan: Me too. Thank you for having me, Josie. It was really, really lovely.
[00:53:31] Josie: Oh, absolutely.
[00:53:38] Thanks for listening to the Intersectional Fertility Podcast. To get customized fertility recommendations based on your Whole Self Fertility Method element, join my mailing list at intersectionalfertility.com and get immediate access to my 2 minute quiz.
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