Latest / The Cyclical Doula Podcast: Fertility Awareness, Charting Cycles, and Reproductive Health Education / Navigating the Emotional Landscape of Fertility with Anne-Marie Pereira
Transcript
- Anne-Marie Pereira: Everything I had ever thought was normal became abnormal for me. the body is ultimately responding to something that is emotional. if I have done all the tests, if I have checked everything around my health and there is no answer, then the answer is somewhere else. I can only question what I am aware of. if I look at the energy behind having a baby, it's creation. maybe there is other ways I can bring the same energy which is creation to my life. Emmamma: Welcome to the Cyclical Doula podcast. I'm Emma, a certified fertility awareness educator, miscarriage doula and the founder of Emmamma LLC. This space is for women who want to understand their bodies deeply, not just memorize information, but actually feel confident in interpreting their cycles. Here we talk about ovulation, hormones, cervical mucus, basal body temperature, and all that's messy in between emotional layers that come with being a woman. We talk about trying to conceive, avoiding pregnancy without hormones. postpartum transitions, pregnancy loss, perimenopause, and everything in between. Because body literacy isn't just about charting. It's about the autonomy. It's about informed consent. It's about not outsourcing your reproductive decisions to guesswork or fear. Each week, you'll hear conversations with women's health professionals, ⁓ birth workers, ⁓ educators, and researchers along with solo episodes where I teach practical skills you can apply to your own cycle right away. if you have ever felt like you should have learned this information sooner, if you have ever felt disconnected from your cycle, If you want to raise the next generation without shame around their bodies, you are in the right place. So grab your tea, open up your notes app, and let's build a cycle confidence together. emmamma: Welcome back. I am so excited to have Anne Marie with me today. Can you just tell us a little bit more about who you are as a human being as we start off? Anne-Marie Pereira: First of all, thank you so much, Emma, for having me today. as a human being, what would I say? So I'm here as a as a therapist today to to share a bit a bit about my my experience with women. But first of all, I'm a woman, a mother of two little kids, and I think my whole intention is really to look at my own journey. and help as many women as I can and this is part of why I reached out to you so that we can bring a different conversation to women and help them on their own journey. emmamma: Yeah. So good. I'm so excited for to have this conversation. And I would love if you're willing for you to just start off by sharing like how you got to become a fertility and emotional healing therapist and like what what that looks like either personally or professionally and how how you're kinda where you are today. Anne-Marie Pereira: Yeah, it's it's so funny that you asked that question because if I look back, I would never have thought I would be here talking to you today. so I have been on this road for a bit more than six years now, almost seven. And I had never thought I would be a therapist one day. I would never have thought I would work for myself one day. I had the typical growing up, getting dependent, have a job, You know, don't depend on men, you know, all of this, have the diplomas and everything. So that was how I how I grew up and how it started my my whole life, basically. And I had my first son in 20 and 14, and three years later I got pregnant again. And my second son lived seven days, and at that moment Everything I had ever thought was normal became abnormal for me. So I started to question absolutely everything. What's the meaning of life? What's the meaning of my work? What you know what I'm listening to? What am I watching? And I looked for answers everywhere and every anywhere that I could, and I started to really question a lot about this normal day-to-day life that we are given to believe that. We have to have. And it emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: all started from there. First, I looked at myself, I looked at my thoughts, my beliefs around, you know, what emotions did I have, what may have brought me to that experience with my second son. I looked for answers in therapy as well. So I use today hypnotherapy in my work. So hypnotherapy was a very big part of me. healing at that time. And in 2018, repeating to myself so many times that the past doesn't have to repeat itself, I got pregnant with my baby girl. So that worked out for me. And I think that questioning about everything that I I had thought was going to be my life and my own fertility emmamma: Yeah. Anne-Marie Pereira: experience made me think, there's so much More I can give to this world. There's a such a different way than working in 95 in a big company way to change the world one person at a time at my own level. And so I trained in the exact therapy that helped me in my own healing journey. And it started from there. I had never thought I would work in fertility. For the same reason that, you know, my own experience was still very raw for me. So it was very difficult for me to talk about it at that time. But I started to work with women, and for some reason, women going through unexplained infertility started to show at my door and and ask me, okay, can you help me? I was like, okay, let's emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: try that. And and seeing the result and seeing all of the emotional Baggage women have, women keep and don't look at on this journey, make me really understand, okay, you've been through that exactly to be able to understand them, help them, and and really stop them from having to keep all of these emotions inside and you know, emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: don't not not be able to either fully live their motherhood. in a good way if they become mothers or really enjoy life, whatever life may bring to them. So that's that's the whole story. emmamma: I love that. Thanks so much for sharing. I I s I know so many people who are in the like wellness space and helping women kind of come from this this personal experience. And it's so powerful just hear how people come into that. I wonder as you're talking about this, what is something that you see continually with patterns as women are coming to you, is it kind of so dependent upon the individual with their fertility journey or is it do you see the same things coming up over and over again that you work on? Anne-Marie Pereira: So in terms of my work, it's important that I I explain to you where do I come in? Because that was a question I asked myself emmamma: Yeah, that's great. Anne-Marie Pereira: so much. Because we we are so many therapists helping women in in different moments. There's also medicine helping women become pregnant and and this is a great thing as well. So I was like, okay, where do I exactly come in? And what I understood over the years is My work helps women that have been on this road for a very long time and they have no answers. So usually they have tried a lot of things from a different diet, nutrition, supplements. They've tried other kinds of therapies like acupuncture. They may have been through talking therapies. So they've tried a lot of things that are usually advised on this road. And In terms of scans and tests, there is no clear explanation as to why the body is not functioning as expected. So that's when I can tell you, like 99% sure, that there is something else. So there's something emotional, there's something inside that hasn't been seen that can be seen and understood. So there's a message that the body is giving to this woman. That she hasn't understood way yeah yet. And the body will find ways to talk to you. And the fertility challenge is another way the body has. That's one that is very hurtful, of course, because when you when you want to be pregnant, you want to be pregnant tomorrow. You don't want to have to wait six six months, two years, or even ten years as a a few women I speak to. But it's like the body has wonderful and and very strange ways to speak to us sometimes. So if you've tried emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: everything and there's this still no answer and whatever has functioned for other people seem not to function, maybe there is another layer that needs to be looked at to understand really what's happening in your own body, in your own mind, in your thoughts that is impacting your fertility. So that's that's the pattern that I see in the women emmamma: Yeah. Anne-Marie Pereira: I work with. emmamma: Wow, yeah, I think that's I I really dislike the phrase that's used in society of like unexplained infertility because it's so often there's something and sometimes it's like a physical thing and sometimes like you mentioned, like it can sometimes be emotional or all of those other blocks that are there too. And I that doesn't mean that that's like necessarily the case for every single person all the time, but that it can be a factor into it and that's really it's amazing that there's people like you that can help along that journey for people. when you when you were going through your own experience, was there something that you kind of latched on to as a rhythm or rich ritual that you incorporate you incorporated then, or maybe something that you now incorporate into your life to just continue with? Anne-Marie Pereira: Yeah. I think that the the most important thing that I became aware of was starting to understand okay what are the thoughts I have about myself. So about myself emmamma: Mm. Anne-Marie Pereira: as a whole, as a woman, as a mother or future mother, what are the thoughts I have about my body, about my fertility. And usually those thoughts, if I don't ask you, you know, Emma, stop time and tell me how do you speak to yourself? How when you look at yourself emmamma: Yeah. Anne-Marie Pereira: in the mirror, what how do you talk about your body? Or when you go to the doctor and when you have those appointments for treatments or with the doctor, how do you speak to yourself after that? Do you see your body emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: as an enemy? Do you speak to your body like a machine that's not working? Or so I I think That what really changed for me was starting to observe and then question. Okay, so you're thinking this about yourself. Is it you? Is it something you've heard from your mom or from your aunts growing up or from other w other women? Or is it really like your thought about yourself? So it's like really understanding how we speak to ourselves or about ourselves in the first place when nobody's watching, nobody hearing us. Is a very good observation because most of the times, emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: and that's what I see with the women I work with, those thoughts are not even ours. Those words that we repeat ourselves are not even ours, but they have an impact on our body. I can tell you that they have an impact on our body. We are giving instructions to our bodies all of the time. So the first thing that really helped me was starting to observe that. question it and something that really helped me was so the technique that I that I used on myself and then was trained on uses recordings to change these thoughts. Okay, today I think that my body is not helping me. It's against me. Okay, so let's change those words to something that's more beneficial. And then hearing like meditation style hypnosis recording, you can change these thoughts. Like a daily vitamin or a daily supplement you would take. It's a way of helping you think better thoughts about yourself, your body, and really emmamma: Yeah. Anne-Marie Pereira: giving instructions about what you expect from your body to have a healthy emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: pregnancy. And as I was telling you, a sentence, I know it's negative and that's not the intention, but that's something that I repeated to myself over and over again. The past doesn't have to repeat itself because when we go through difficult experience, of course, the next pregnancy is full of stress, thoughts, whatever, you know. So it really is important for you to understand that it's a different experience. And even if it's challenging because it will, really repeating ourselves that it's it's gonna be different. It's gonna be emmamma: Yeah. Anne-Marie Pereira: different. Yeah. So that really helped me in that sense. Yeah. emmamma: Yeah, that's so good. And I think it's such a thing that tea that constantly is taking place is that we have all these voices inundating what we're hearing or at about ourselves. And as you kind of mentioned, like sometimes or most of the time, the voices that we like talk to ourselves about are really outside voices that have kind of come in and inundated what we we think or we should think about certain situations and being a parent myself, like I just think about how aware I am of sometimes when those thoughts or like those statements are said around my kids about certain things and how much I try to make sure that not that they're sheltered from all the things, but that they can see all the different perspectives of situations and not hopefully not take that so inward all of the time. And then also speaking life and joy and power into into all of that too. And I think I think sometimes as parents we can do such a good job with that with our kids and then forget to do it to ourselves as well. Yeah. Anne-Marie Pereira: yes. Definitely. It's it's but it's hard wire since we are very young to let in criticism. So it's very easy for emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: us to criticize ourselves and and and if you look at it, you would never you know you would never keep a friend that speaks to you the way you speak to yourself. And sometimes I look at how easy it is when you do a mistake or something to start criticizing ourselves and then for our kids you'd say, the just a kid. What's the difference? There's no difference. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Anne-Marie Pereira: But criticism is very easy, very easy. But it could because it's taught from a very young age that you know, whatever the grown ups say it's true, then I take it for myself emmamma: Yeah. Anne-Marie Pereira: and think I'm really that and I'm going to turn into that thing that they say that I am. 'Cause kids don't question what they hear. They can't. They're really young, yeah. And we were emmamma: Mm. No, they don't. Yeah. Absolutely. Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: those children a few years ago. emmamma: Right, right. And yeah, so as as individuals, as women, like we those are there and when I'm sure for so many people it like comes up subconsciously of those beliefs that are are there, especially when they're going through harder times and long fertility experiences and stuff like that. Anne-Marie Pereira: Yes. Maybe maybe if it helps you I can give you a few examples of of beliefs that I've seen emmamma: Yeah, I'd love that. Anne-Marie Pereira: specifically around fertility. So I have seen so this happens really in sessions because if you tell me and do you have the answer? I don't have the answers my clients have. I know how to guide them for them to get to these answers that are within them. So I've seen women go through life with an inner belief that they don't want any other child to go through what they went through. So emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: then when the time comes for the body to get pregnant, it doesn't want to. It wants to protect her. So it's not that the body doesn't want to. The body really, really, really wants. So the mind really, really wants and tells the body to really, really want to protect her from that deep fear that she has, that maybe another child will go through the same thing that she did. Okay. You can have other thoughts that can be believed that can be, I don't want to be exactly like my mom. And this can have a very, very big impact depending on how was your childhood. I have seen women that because of their own experience, the belief that they had is you have to be older to be a good mom, because what they saw as very young parents were not parents that really Took good care of them. But they saw their parents act different with their siblings. Okay, So if you're older, then you're not gonna know how to take care of your children. But when is old enough? So the body has an instruction that it has to be older. So it's it's you know, it's even stopping the period. That's what I've seen like clients specifically. It was stopping her period just before IVF. So she was wanting to, you know, force the process. And when she when she was to have her next cycle planned, the body stops her period. emmamma: Yeah. Anne-Marie Pereira: So you can see those kind of beliefs. Sometimes the belief is not even around fertility, which is even more like mind-blowing to me still about how the mind works. but it's it's that thing of understanding, I've tried everything. Maybe there's something else, and that something else, maybe a belief of something I've seen, something I've heard of. Like you know, I've seen also like children that a woman that as a child heard her mom and aunts talk about how it was so hurtful to actually give birth and then you go grow up wanting to avoid that moment that you've heard was so awful. So sometimes it's really about okay, why have I learned, heard, or went through myself? And a lot of my clients looking into in hindsight today, they have been through a traumatic birth themselves as a baby or had some kind of challenge throughout their pregnancy in their mother's belly. And a lot of my clients as well are surprise babies, so babies that were not planned. babies that were not expected or other examples could be like Some you know in in in some countries you pray to have a firstborn as a as a boy and came a girl. And then you have emmamma: Yep. Anne-Marie Pereira: women that grow up never wearing skirts, never wearing dresses, very in her masculine, with difficulty feeling pleasure, and then later in life she wants to become pregnant and have a child, and the body, you know, has a whole different instruction inside of it as to how it should pr work and and perform. So yeah, you can have a lot of different ways that we are giving instructions to our bodies every day. emmamma: Mm-hmm. It's so fascinating. And I think I as you're as you're saying all of these different things, when you're working with somebody, is this something that people start sharing or are you like leading I like because you were talking about like traumatic births or like there something happening when they were in gestation like as the baby And I wonder like, is this something that you like slowly come out over time or like as you're starting to initially work with them, like do you ask all the questions about like how was your birth and your childhood and all of those things? Cause I feel like that wouldn't be the initial thing that like I would share or know about if I was in a situation like that. Anne-Marie Pereira: Yeah. So you don't need to ask it, but I still ask emmamma: Uh-huh. Anne-Marie Pereira: it because I'm very curious to understand as to how much the pattern or the belief is conscious or not. So some clients emmamma: Mm. Anne-Marie Pereira: will tell you I know exactly when you know when this happened, or I know exactly the moment that really impacted me and and from that moment You know, I started to believe this or that. So let's say a child was abandoned but her mom for two years because the mom had to work abroad, etc. So I'm just reminding myself of that client said to me, I'm sure this is because of this. And sometimes it is and sometimes it's not. So a client could tell you about a story they've heard about how they came into the world, and it could be this or it could not be this. Sometimes we emmamma: Yeah. Anne-Marie Pereira: think that you have to have a very big trauma. And I don't like that word because what I've seen is that yes, some people go through very traumatic moments and this is this is emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: a the exact moment that changed everything. But I've seen clients go through very traumatic moments and it wasn't the moment that was really like life changing, if I could say in terms of how they started to believe about themselves. I've seen other clients go through very not not so traumatic moments as you would look at them with adult eyes and they still created a definition of that moment. So because of this emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: I don't deserve. Because of this I will never be this or that. So it doesn't have to be big. And it's never about what's happening. It's about the meaning you give to it. So whatever happened whether it was big or small you gave that moment a meaning. Okay. emmamma: Yeah. Anne-Marie Pereira: I don't deserve to be a mom, or being a mom means this or that, or if you know, like if when you have a child, maybe the father will go away. So maybe I'm just going to avoid that whole story and and be by emmamma: Yeah. Anne-Marie Pereira: myself and never find somebody. So it all depends on what the child gave. as a meaning to whatever happened. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: Now I understand also we we as as therapists and and helpers in in this, I think we also attract a kind of client that we can really help depending on what we do, depending on our experience as a therapist, but also our own experience. So what I've seen is is as I was telling you, a lot of women that come to me we're we're a surprise baby in that sense or we're in through something but very very early as you were saying gestation or birth so that's what I see like 70 plus percent of my clients have been through like something very similar. What I've seen over the past three years is something different as well because but I think that our generation is seeing this more and more as well. So I trained myself over the past three years or three years ago in more of the systemic view of the feminine side. Because I've seen women bring me challenges around repeating patterns from their mom, their grandmothers. I've seen women come to me saying to me, since my grandmother, all of the girls in the family have to go through IBF to get pregnant. Or emmamma: Okay. Anne-Marie Pereira: a health issue happening in the mom and then happening again in in the in the daughter. So I've seen that also our generation is here to look at our family line, our feminine line more specifically and really understand, okay, what am I what am I bringing to the surface with my own experience and maybe heal things that are not even ours, but for some reason I feel we also have a like a role to play here. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's fascinating. I think that that generational things that are coming down is is such an interesting way to look at how the body responds to what's taking place. And I think that that is just it's such a fascinating way to look at it. Anne-Marie Pereira: Yes, I think we don't we have we have no clue about what happened before. And maybe our generation emmamma: Yeah. Anne-Marie Pereira: more easily have this kind of conversation, right? Where I would share my story, you would share yours. But before they thought the right thing to do, maybe they didn't have even have the choice was to hide, was to not tell, was to not share, was to not feel. But then our generation, it's as if now we have like a I don't know if it's a duty or if it's a gift or whatever to bring things to the surface and maybe through our own experience of fertility, heal part of what has happened to the women that came before us. I feel I feel that. emmamma: Yeah. That's so so good. And such a a powerful way to move forward. I think like the idea of like when you when you know better, you do better can be on this like emotional side of of things as well. Emmamma: hey, I'm just popping in real quick to say Make sure you're subscribed to the Cyclical Doula podcast on whichever platform you're listening to. ⁓ And don't miss upcoming conversations. If this episode is resonating with you, please share it with a friend, rate it and write a review. This is how this movement grows, not through algorithms, but through women talking to women. All right, let's jump back into it. emmamma: how do you see the emotional and the physical parts of health kind of overlapping and interplaying together? Anne-Marie Pereira: So, what I what I have been able to see in the women I work with is that the body is ultimately responding to something that is emotional. Okay, so coming back to what we were saying before, if I have done all the tests, if I have checked everything around my health and there is no answer, then the answer is somewhere else. Okay. And if I look at During sessions, asking the client session the client questions and the question come up in hypnosis, so it's around unconscious, unconscious emotions and thoughts. And that person brings to the surface that belief that they would never want a baby to go through the same thing. They don't want to repeat something they've seen happening, they need their body to be older, they don't want to go through the same pregnancy and and their husband leaving or something like that that could be what brings to the surface then the body will do absolutely everything to protect that woman so what I see in these bodies is they are contracting so it's like they're emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: closed they're not you know they're not letting anything in anything out it's closed it's contracted And when you talk about a baby coming in, you need to be in a res in in receptive mode, right? You need to be emmamma: Yeah. Anne-Marie Pereira: open to receive in that sense. So it's like if I'm like this, protecting, closed, then my body can't receive. So it's all about understanding, okay, what's the message that I'm giving to my body? Now I'm going to give a different message because I've understood exactly where this is this is coming from. You know, I I'm able to see that most of the time it's not even mine. And emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: I understand this happened because of this, but I don't have to bring it to today. It doesn't okay, it happened, but it's there. It does I don't have to bring it every day within myself. And then you work on opening the body. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: On you know, we talk about stress. Stress is the I don't know if it's responsible for a hundred percent of everything we go through, but it it won't be very, very far from it. But I know that on the fertility journey women like are over hearing, you know, you have to lower your emmamma: Yeah. Anne-Marie Pereira: stress levels and everything. And the thing is, it's really about stress, but it's really understanding how it impacts me, right? Because it's emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: it's the body contracting. There's something that's making your body act in this way. There's something making your period stop. There is something making your period you know like dysregulated or making your period very heavy, very painful. So this is something also that I have looked at in myself. I don't talk too much about it, but when I was a teenager teenager, I had PCOS that now has changed its name, right? I also had very heavy period pain. And when I started emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: to question, is it mine or is it because I have seen my mom talk about how period is painful, how it's you know, difficult to have a child, how it's it's hurtful, did I take all this pain somehow? And because I don't want to be different from my mom, because I want to belong, because I want to be like her. Did I bring all of this to me when and then For some reason that all disappeared and now I can see that, but at the time I didn't even understand what was happening. But it's like emmamma: Yeah. Anne-Marie Pereira: what are we telling our body that makes it close, that makes our period 'cause I feel that period is is a way of speaking that the women don't have. I've seen women go through very difficult times in their life and they can't even cry, but the body is crying somehow. not crying above, it's crying below. So I I feel that there's ways we can really get to understand a lot more ourselves through understanding, okay, what's the thought? What am I telling myself? And sometimes it's just observing. emmamma: Mm-hmm. I was gonna ask you next what like the first step is for people to to do, but I think you just answered that really well of like observing and listening. But is there anything else that you kind of have that like first step for for anybody who's listening maybe to kind of start this practice? Anne-Marie Pereira: Yes, I think there's there's two things. The first one is just this one that's free, easy and and I've I've heard a few years ago when when I started my my own self development journey, it was like a guy saying he had bought a recording recorder, whatever and he had put this recorder in his pocket and he would go through the whole day recording whatever was Going out of his mouth. And at the end of the day, he would listen to that and he heard so many words, bad words, bad ways of speaking to himself that he was never aware of before. So I think the first one would be like stop time, observe, because criticism to ourselves is so easy. And sometimes it's in thought, right? Like sometimes it's just the thought, it's not even something we say. Just understanding that is a very good step. So the first step is really observing because I can only question what I am aware of. So that would be the first very easy one. And then I would say there are things you can do with regards to the fertility. So one would be finding some kind of joy within the process because what I see is that I don't like this world either, but it's really for for you to understand and the people that are listening to us, there is an obsession around. the baby. And emmamma: Mm-hmm. Anne-Marie Pereira: the baby is the focus. nothing else exists. So I what I see in these women is that They lose sight of other things in their lives. Okay. And if I look at the energy behind having a baby, it's creation. And I have many ways of bringing creation into my life. And so another thing that's very easy is like, okay. I have a challenge getting pregnant or having a baby, but maybe there is other ways I can bring the same energy which is creation to my life. Maybe it's dancing. I work with a lot of women that go back to painting, go back to drawing. what is within creation as a whole that you can bring a bit more into your life? Okay, so this is something. This is also a way of bringing more joy, more ease, and more creation into your life. Because at the end of the day, it's the same exact energy. Whenever a emmamma: Mm. Anne-Marie Pereira: woman is creating, it's the same energy as creating a baby. So, whatever sense of joy, creation you can bring into your life, whatever this means to you. I would say do a bit of it every day. Bring a bit of creation, a bit of joy within your life, because this will help the whole process. It will help the way you look at yourself, the look at you the way you look at your process. it will ease the whole the whole journey. And if I would give one last thing, and I'm very happy then to share the link with you. I have Two recordings that I offer free. They're on my on my website and they are called release and receive. The first one is really around lowering the stress levels, and the second one is really to prepare their body to receive. So I would say the third the third thing is find something, it can be these recordings, it could be something else, but find something that is like your daily go-to, your daily shake button with you that brings you good things, good feelings, good words, good thoughts in inside of you. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's great. And yes, those links would be great and we can put in the show notes. I think that that's those are like it sound like I know that some of those are gonna would take a lot of work to like build habits and look at all of those things, but those sound like very easy implementing things to be doing of observing, of finding something creative, and then like having this daily rhythm of releasing and receiving. And I think that that's I think sometimes it's so hard when especially like as women as a whole, but especially when we're in this time of really questioning what our fertility is doing, that there's it's just so inundated with all of these different options of things that you should or you could be doing. And I think taking that step back, and as you mentioned, like just saying like not to stress less is not a helpful statement. But these like three things of observing how your body's reacting to things and really taking the time to create something and kind of put that energy somewhere specific. and then kind of like changing your mindset can be really helpful in just that that shifting of I think like just being able to be okay in the in the particular season that you're in too and then being able to receive and move forward into a new season when When your body's ready. Anne-Marie Pereira: Yes, I th I think that's really the the key here. Everything is so timed, so heavy, so full of stuff that whatever you can bring that's simpler, easier. that doesn't have to take an hour, it can be five minutes. But it's like anything that you can bring that can simplify. then it's very welcome, I think. Anything that really makes you feel that it's not another thing to do. If it feels like it's another thing to do, take it out because that's that's not the moment. Now it feel feels like it's easy, it's simple, it's helping, then bring it bring it in. I think it's not about doing one more thing and and one more thing on the on the to-do list and on the calendar and making it heavier. emmamma: You're right. Anne-Marie Pereira: It's solid about looking for the contrary to that. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah, that's so good. I've been loving this conversation. Is there anything else that you just like feel like you want to share with listeners as they're we're wrapping up today? Anne-Marie Pereira: Yes, I feel that so sometimes the challenge is is with women, sometimes the challenge is with men and it's been talked about that more and more and and more and more discussed. What I want to say to women is that the miracle still happens in in them. So I know that sometimes I speak to lot of women that their husbands are not so open, not so willing to look into it. Maybe it's hurting them in a different way. We we are very two different beings in terms of how we are created but also how we communicate, how we how we deal with emotions and everything. So I want to remind women that Whatever they do to help with the process, and even if their husband are not so much on board, the miracles still happen in themselves. So them giving very good instructions to their bodies, creating a a very strong partnership with their body, trusting their body can really help in the process to bring them like more joy in that sense and more hope and positivity on on yeah, that's what came to mind. No to share. emmamma: I love that. I think that's so good. Cause I think we can put a lot of pressure on ourselves as as women, but I think it's helpful to also remember that we have that control as well. Like it it's a both end that we don't need to put the pressure, but we also have control. Anne-Marie Pereira: Some control, yeah. I think the whole process emmamma: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Totally. Anne-Marie Pereira: is is really to understand that in the end we can never promise anything. We don't have a crystal ball. emmamma: Yes. Anne-Marie Pereira: you know, we it the process is reminding us in my story, reminding myself that basically everything I tried to control my whole life I couldn't control. So I think it's a constant reminder that emmamma: Yes, yes. Anne-Marie Pereira: we don't control things. But it's like emmamma: Yes. Anne-Marie Pereira: if if I'm doing everything with within my reach to make sure that my my mind body my heart are moving towards the same direction that I'm doing everything to support whatever I then If I need to cry, and that's why I t tell my clients, if we need to cry in in in three months, 'cause I usually work with my clients in three months, we'll cry together. But for now there's emmamma: Yeah. Anne-Marie Pereira: no way, there's no space for us to think about something else than what we are working on. emmamma: Yeah, I love that. That's so good. Awesome. Thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate you sharing all of your wisdom and insight. Where can people connect with and find you? Anne-Marie Pereira: So thank you so much Emma for having me today again. It was a very nice conversation. People can find me online in in different socials at in at free infertility. So free infertility. So Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, basically most of the socials. And I'm very happy to share the link to to the recordings if it can help the women. emmamma: Awesome, sounds good. We'll get those in the show notes so people can listen and you all can follow along and learn some more things. Thanks so much for being here. Emmamma: Thanks so much for being here today on the cyclical doula podcast. If this episode resonated with you, the most powerful thing that you can do is to share it, send it to a friend, text it to your sister, forward it to that group chat. This is how conversations about our bodies start changing, quietly, organically, woman to woman. If you are listening and thinking, okay, I want help applying this to my cycle, I offer free cycle clarity calls. It's a relaxed conversation over Zoom where we talk through your goals, your charting practices, and what kind of support that would actually make sense for you. You can book one at emmamma.com / free. And if you haven't already, make sure you're following or subscribe to the Cyclical Doula - podcast so that you don't miss future episodes. And if you feel called to leave a rating or review, it genuinely helps more women find this work. So thank you. You deserve to understand your body. You deserve to feel confident in your reproductive choices. And you don't have to figure it out alone. I'll see you next week. Thanks for being here.