Latest / The Home of Fertility with Liz Walton & Helen Zee / Eight Losses To Two Children And The Work Of Holding Space a deep discussion with Stacey June Lewis

Transcript

Eight Losses To Two Children And The Work Of Holding Space a deep discussion with Stacey June Lewis · The Home of Fertility with Liz Walton & Helen Zee

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Home of Fertility.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: A space for real conversation.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Expert insight about fertility.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm welcome.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm Helen Zay.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: We are two mums who've walked this path and are passionate about supporting you on your journey.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about it all.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Fertility treatment, elliptic support, relationship, mindset, and the emotional high.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes the missing pitch lies in someone else's story.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: In the quiet wisdom of the body, or in a breakthrough that's finally made for you.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: We are so glad you are here.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Let's dive in.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Home of Fertility here with Liz Walton.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: And today, as with every episode, I get to speak to some of the most amazing people and within within the fertility field of health and healing and well-being.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: And today I'm speaking with a gorgeous woman, and her name is Stacy June Lewis.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Stacy, how are you?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I'm just divine after that lovely grounding little exercise you did pre-our recording.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's so nice to be on the receiving end of those types of intentions and an energetic kind of grounding that you did then.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: It calmed me right down.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's um lovely to be here, and that was very nice.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: I do um, I suppose people don't realize I like to always do a little intention at the beginning of every podcast because for me it's about being of service.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: How can the words that I speak with the wonderful person that is I'm sharing the room with, even if it's a Zoom room, be as powerful as possibly they can?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so um that's very thank you so much.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's extremely grateful.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: So beautiful, Stacey.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you have a wonderful background in counseling, understanding grief, and with all of the work that you have done.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna hand this over to you, Stacy.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let the person find out who you are and how this all started for you and your journey, because you've also had your own fertility journey.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, please take it away and share with us what's brought you here in this journey of life working with fertility.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting because when we start to think about the word fertility, there is an essence of creation.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I think well before fertility was in my life in the form of um a very yearned-for baby.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: I've always been quite a fertile, like my my energy has always lent towards the language around fertility, if that makes sense.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm quite creative.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm a lifelong storyteller.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: I I really do lean into, I guess, the energetic essence of what fertility is, which is this creation.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I really think it's it's the quite it's quite basic when we we we would we pair it back that it's you know life form, like a you know, a creative, a creative entity.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's been my life really has been in the creative world.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: I was a storyteller and a broadcaster in radio first and foremost.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: But the storytelling aspect of my radio career was very built around women's stories, women's voices, and women's health.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: And when I came into um, I guess my first understanding of fertility, which then very quickly led to um a pregnancy loss, yeah, my life really did change forever.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: The course of what that creative fertility essence that had been so innocent and had really been quite um, I guess, pure, yeah, had changed.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I think one thing that is really powerful about hindsight uh when you move past the particular being in the trenches journey, and I'm not talking about postpartum, I'm talking about fertility and even just the early stage desire to be thinking about a baby.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: You might not even try, but that those trenches really start well before maybe even the physical practice of trying to conceive, whether that's through IVF or um conception through, yeah, at your home.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: I don't love the term natural conception, but um so I think that there is a very big fertile conversation that goes on and begins well before you you move into the physical part.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then if that begins in such a big, grounded, considered kind of magical way for that to really quickly land in a loss is pretty existential straight up.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: It really does start to have you question a lot, and so from that place, uh I had at the same time lost my job and had this these really big questions happening about not just who I was, but I suppose what it all meant.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think fertility and pregnancy loss, and then for me very luckily to go on and mum and become a mom and in motherhood has really given me an essence of I guess the simplistic nature of life, and then also the innate, complex kind of colour and travesty and grief aspect of it.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: And from that point, I found my way into private practice, I found my way into running a um a big wellness hub in uh the heart of the inner west suburbs in Melbourne.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I also found myself working for a charity uh that specializes and supports women going through early pregnancy loss.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: Off the back of that first miscarriage, you know, my entire life really changed when I think about it now.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm two years postpartum, and the journey across my two children was six years and eight losses.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I think I'm still very, very raw in, I guess, the story of it from the hindsight perspective.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's probably the first time I've been able to share, I guess, that put into a bit more of a package in a way that feels more aligned with myself than sharing as I have in the past.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: I was the host on The Miscarriage Rebellion on the Pink Elephants podcast, but I also was my own, had my own show for many, many years on The Thinker Girls and shared my loss through.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I've really shared it quite innately and in real time.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of my writing got picked up, all those types of things.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: So it's probably the first time I've really shared looking back.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: And since then, yeah, I've jumped from broadcaster to psychotherapist.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: I, you know, I'm a director of a wellness hub here in Melbourne, and I'm a mum of two kids.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of wild.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, so wild.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel very honored in a way that you are sharing this um with, you know, the new reflection and understanding because we do, life, life kind of happens, and we just carry on to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, and um sometimes forget to sort of stop, breathe, and you know, just reflect.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: So um just honoring your big journey there, big journey, and working for pink elephants must have been, you know, again, a really massive um really massive thing to do, um, but it's also a subject, you know, that you knew and a subject that is emotional.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's it it's always you know, allowing yourself to um create uh I suppose being gentle with the self, you know, because it's such a big subject when we've also been it, but it's also supporting others.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the Pink Elephant's work really grounded my, I guess, uh evolution as a woman that had really had a kind of constant purpose to connect with women so they could better connect with their own voices.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I think going from a broadcaster to a psychotherapist on paper looks like this kind of crazy, really dynamic, quite big change career-wise.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: But really the thread of it was very similar.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think I realized that until Sam, who is the CEO of Pink Elephants, really saw what I was doing in terms of my storytelling actually was really, really kind of connected to what I began to do in my counseling.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: It really was the one thing that was the thread between both of those parts of myself at that time.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm forever grateful to her for running things so dynamically and intuitively, but yet putting such substance on the clinical aspects of that and and the, you know, not to take, not to take that not seriously.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: Just because you run your business quite feminine and quite um, yeah, like I said, quite intuitively doesn't mean that it doesn't pack a punch in terms of what you're able to do.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: So if you know anything about her work, you know that it certainly is quite the opposite.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I think for me, moving from the storytelling aspect of my own story and then moving into counseling, but then very quickly moving into group therapy and working in this field, it was so profound how incredible it was to work really intimately with women in that way at that acute time.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think when I accepted the bereavement role with pink elephants, I had any idea just the acute work it was, like how like really front, I guess, frontline work it was in terms of the health industry.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I guess for me that was overpowered by the kind of force of the work in that time for a woman when they have just found out that their baby isn't is not going to make it to their arms.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then they in within sometimes within a week, days are jumping on a Zoom with 12 other women and sharing.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's just something there is no other work like that, where you are holding space for women that are literally trying to process the concept of life and death in one experience is so profound.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that really overrode a lot of the overwhelm for me in terms of purpose and power and opportunity for my work and how it really threaded from storytelling to counseling, but how that very that very much was a surprising link in in a very, very um quite incredible way.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wow.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds very incredible and very amazing.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so tell this work as it leads on from your work, you know, working with grief, working with miscarriage.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So let's tell us a bit about that and your work.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when I started um moving into the group therapy, very quickly my private practice started to emulate themes that weren't necessarily just about fertility and early pregnancy loss.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Once I started to really dive into grief and grief work, I started to understand the intricate aspects of grief in micro ways in women's lives every day.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: This, you know, this really humongous um journey that we go on as a woman, regardless of whether that includes motherhood or not, but then to put the journey of motherhood into that as well, it's really quite um a spectacular story of grief.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: We are constantly, even in our cycle every month, letting go, you know.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: So the entire menstrual cycle is about a shedding every single month.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I began to really understand grief in a way that was very everyday that there was women in my private practice coming in with problems that could look like I've been ghosted, I want to change careers, um, I can't fall pregnant, I've just lost my baby, I'm having relationship issues, I don't know who I am, I've just turned, you know, 40, 30, you know, all of this identity aspects, questionings, lots of rumination.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so much of it was linked to a grief of themselves, a version of themselves where they were hanging on and maybe not resisting what was, which is often a letting go process.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: Now that's to kind of make it a little bit romantic, but the core of it was is that a lot of the times I was also holding space for women that hadn't felt heard, um, that had seen many different types of um, you know, support workers or psychologists, or maybe somebody that they spoke to at you know, at their corporate company that gave this, or you know, a lot of people had came into my private practice who had seen and and tried to find supports before.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I suppose there was an opportunity for me at the time because I felt so imposter syndrome in some way when I jumped into this space.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, who am I, the radio girl to be moving into counseling and psychotherapy?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: It kind of was short-lived because I really did start to see an opportunity.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, what is this person looking to share?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Where is her story?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: But then more importantly, how is this story working against her, for her?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then really started to carve out that the grief work I was learning in early pregnancy loss and fertility was really, really relevant in so many different facets of women's lives.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I was learning that through supporting women in group therapy in my charity work, but I was learning it myself, still going through my own losses.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so it was interesting.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of the clinical aspect that I that I studied and move into in my private practice is person-centered, um, a little bit of that psychodynamic where there is a connection to where we come from.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: But I think a lot of it really did drive much closer to an acceptance commitment therapy and this kind of aspect of we'll who are we and what are our values and what is our purpose and how do we continue to reinstate that for ourselves when we make decisions, whether it's to leave that job, whether it's to do another round, whether it's to um, you know, have a pause from treatment for now and let my whatever it was, there were these really beautiful moments that were coming up for me on the things that I'd learnt, but starting to carve into a very specific way of tailoring to clients, all built around the work I was leaning into with grief.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it became, and it still is, a very big part of my practice and a very big part of my um, I guess, understanding of how to support, because when you really see someone and in the true depths of grief, it really is the coreest and the rawest of emotions.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so from that, I have been able to learn so, so much about how to support people and and how to find the ability to um not shy away and lean into the hardest and the stickiest and the kind of tender aspects of our days.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, no, grief is I mean, grief is such a massive subject.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so with bringing grief to the fertility space or infertility space and losing miscarriage or even just after having the baby, it's so so raw and so tender.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so being able to hold that for the client and to support, I feel is is is extremely important.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: And this is where also um I want to touch on the fact that when we've had the journey, I mean, you've had this journey yourself, so you have had a lived experience and that deep understanding, I feel that is um it's really important because of that depth of understanding.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say about that?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, to just connect back to what I had said, you know, there's an ability for me to sit with someone in that because not only do I know some of the experiences, not all, that people go through that I've sat in myself, but I also know what it feels like when people are uncomfortable to sit with you.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: And that feeling is something that I believe has to be felt to deeply and truly understand, that you can have the most loving, most supportive, most caring person who wants the absolute best for you sitting in front of you that isn't able to really truly sit with you into the depths of your grief and pain.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that there's the clinical aspects and the grief work that I ended up really leaning into and leaning on.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: But I think there has always been another depth, an element that I can go down to that may not be the exact same destination or place, but that I'm not afraid to find with them alongside them.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that is something that can be maybe avoided or even maybe a bit uncertain for particular clinical practitioners to put into words.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there are different types of people that get support from their lived experience.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a psychotherapist who has lived experience.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's not my practice is not built around lived experience connection.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're in in front of me and you're moving through your own journey, I'm energetically able to sit in my lived experience to find ways to connect in yours, but I don't necessarily connect in conversation from mine.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's really important to, I guess, discern some of those differences because I think they're all incredibly impactful and incredibly important.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and the peer support aspect of the work that I did in group therapy was just as therapeutic as the actual interventions and the facilitation by myself.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they those breakout rooms and the things that they shared is therapeutic work.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: However, in private practice, those conversations aren't a two-way.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: They're a one-way.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's talk therapy, it's psychotherapy for my client.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: However, in order for us to really build a true level of connection, healing uh process, and for this person to be truly seen, there is a real ability that I bring to sit in my own depths to perhaps meet them at a location that is often hard for people to reach if they haven't experienced something I wouldn't even say similar, often the same.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it wouldn't be the same in the circumstances or the actual experience, but early pregnancy loss is early pregnancy loss.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: There are very many different variations, but yeah, you've lost your baby and they've lost theirs.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: And look, that's so powerful.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I just have a real honoring of the fact that someone like you can support them in that, you know, and move through that and holding, holding that grief, you know, because it's when we allow ourselves to move through it that can be really powerful.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, not always easy, but powerful.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: I want to add, I don't, you know, it is often asked of me how I go with the heaviness of the work.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I just don't frame it like that because it doesn't feel like that to me.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: I I do genuinely, I'm gonna get a bit emotional, but I do genuinely find this work honourable.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: I just don't think there is another exception.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: experience like a woman losing their baby that is um more life like i i just don't know a you know i don't know a bigger life experience than a woman feeling life and death in their body at the same time yeah i just don't and so to sit with someone in the intricate aspects of that and the impactful way even if they don't feel that themselves even if they might be you know resistant to go to those depths maybe the language isn't so deep or so poetic or so um you know because I'm certainly not trying to romanticize this experience uh even if it is not pretty or uh you know um there's like a lovely ceremony or we're having there's tears of reflection.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, it can be gritty and uncomfortable and anger inducing and gross.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know it's not to say that this is all it's all nice or not nice, but you know what I'm saying.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: There that we don't always get to this stage where it's all like oh I can start to see why there's none of that.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think though it's still honorable because the experience is still happening regardless of how anyone is dealing with it.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I'm very proud of finding the honor in it regardless of how someone wants to deal with it.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because there isn't one way for you to deal with something so huge like that.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I find that's where I do find the work incredibly I I'm so honored but I find it incredibly fascinating because it really does show us how unique and powerful but also how intricate and complicated we all are because there's nothing like this experience that asks us to show our greatest depths and fears and and all the ins and outs of things that perhaps come up without us even necessarily consenting for them to.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Life's rich pattern can take us through so many things that we need to experience and this is a really deep one you know um of of childbirth and not being able to have the baby or miscarriages.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: So um I honor the fact that there is someone like you and other practitioners to support in that depth of um emotional emotional what's the word on it's like emotionally having to work through it you know and um and and move beyond which can feel um really difficult I suppose you know how do I move up from this you know so yeah honoring your work so and and it's wonderful to be able to speak to you about this today.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: So with that I know you do a lot of work with somatic sessions and the nervous system support.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: Can you share a bit about that?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah so I also trained to become a yoga teacher but again first and foremost yoga for me personally has always been a very medicinal practice and you know moving my body I was a dancer from a young age and I don't think that you really start to understand why we do the things we do and and we get older and then we start to have patterns where I found yoga and and then later on became a teacher and now really you know more and more understand through research and also anecdotal evidence what it does for people in terms of moving energy and supporting the nervous system and you know all of the other health benefits that I I won't will off today.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: But I suppose um the nervous system piece is such a big conversation one that I think is at the very beginning point.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: I really do think that there is often the grief and the acute grief that we work through when somebody loses a baby.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: And then I think there's the continued grief around all of the things that come from that whether that is an oncoming pregnancy that that does progress or perhaps you know a really massive journey they can look a whole heap of different ways.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so we work with that quite um therapeutically in private practice but I do always add at a particular point, it's not straight away it's the different times depending on the client that there is a conversation that very naturally comes up around connection with the body.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: And it is very very reasonable and very common for the body to start to switch off a little bit and for the connection between the client and you know myself even, when I've experienced it to become a bit of a survival mechanism.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: And we start to see the nervous system is in fight or flight.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that happens very quickly after the loss of a baby we know that the body doesn't really understand you know there's a process that the body has to start to really move through traumatically and this is very separate to the mental and the emotional aspects going on.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: The actual nervous system is working through something too so I have a lot of different options to offer clients.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know in private practice we don't often move to those we might do some breath work if we're finding it hard for there to be you know that kind of check-in with the body it's hard to navigate how people are feeling they feel very numb and cut off we might find a little breath work to move into that but further onto that I'm often referring clients to ensure that there is some space for there to be a connection rebuilt with their body after a pregnancy loss.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: And there's nervous system work to be moving through particularly if people continue to move through fertility treatment hormones are involved grief is still involved but I think even further to that when we're making decisions this is a really quite a practical set of guidance but when we start to make decisions around fertility treatment, IVF, and we are constantly having to answer the phone and make a decision every single day.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then we're also disconnected from our body I do really observe that that is a time where a lot of people end up leaning quite heavily on external factors to find their path.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it's concerning and really quite something that I think is an important thing to bring to light that we can really start to lose I guess advocacy for ourselves very understandably in this time that if the body has started to switch off it's too hard to feel or understand we're exhausted of decisions.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: We don't know what to do because every other time we might have intuitively felt this it didn't work out that way.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: So now we've got doubt and lack of trust even still and always where it's safe to do so because sometimes it is too much to move into breath or move into body work.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: So you do need to work very closely with your own practitioner or your own um your own therapist or your own GPs or whatever your team is but even still I do really believe that a part of the conversation in somebody navigating this journey especially if they do want to go on and give birth however they want to do it is that the body needs to be discussed in the processing of a pregnancy loss.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: And um and yeah and so I we do offer um a whole heap of different nervous system regulation sessions uh at the well here in Melbourne.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: Our focus and thread across all of our sessions is with a very therapeutic lens.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: They are intimate groups we have T station before and after we have very minimal signage and it's very very paired back there are there's a lot of evidence and a lot of research that's gone into our exterior and our external environment because we know the research suggests the body is going to feel safe and and the body is going to start to reset on its own before we decide mentally that it wants to and that has a lot to do with the lighting it has a lot to do with what you see it has a lot to do with sounds so all of those aspects have been taken into consideration with um our hub here in the inner west in Melbourne and then you've got opportunity for nidra breath work sound all aspects that we know really tend to talk to the nervous system as effectively and not that timing is a factor but as quickly as as possible because regulation yeah is a really big piece of the conversation and unfortunately it's no longer this kind of nice thing that you do for yourself every now and then the world is busy the world is hard and our nervous systems were not built for the way that us humans have created our lives so that's separate completely separate to um the trauma and and the effects of grief that the nervous system can be working through in this particular experience too.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah look I just think that sounds awesome and it made me reflect look I I had all my IVFs none of them worked but each one felt like a grief so I don't want to put down anyone else's grief I'm just reflecting on how I'm I'm relating to your words you know and how the body disconnects and um my way of disconnecting with the body was I I bought things um to try and find that little bit of serotonin hit and um I ended up you know and I'm a therapist but at the time when you're in it when you're in that pain um it it's interesting what you know what we do um and um how we sort of yeah sorry then well the nervous system begins to search for those things that that particular um that response that you're looking for it's almost like it's trying to get the um what is it when you're you have a heart attack and you get the fibulators or the defibrillator yeah that yes thank you that you're trying to bring yourself back to life it's quite similar like the if you're feeling numb I think for a lot of women that go through fertility grief or you know miscarriage the nervous system and the fight or flight response is often very private too because we might not be telling work we might not even be really telling ourselves we might have had our miscarriage after our first round of trying at all so we kind of go oh well this is what happened so now the nervous system is moving through the exact same thing as if someone has had eight losses but it's private it's much more private and non-seen so there's going to be all of these behaviors that come out to try and respond.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: The nervous system's doing the same thing whether you make it a big story you're sharing or you don't yeah and so it'll get pretty crafty with the way that it wants to come back to life the way that it wants to soothe the way that it wants to hop out of that freeze or fawn.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's not repression it's the nervous system trying to move out of overwhelm interestingly even though it can sometimes if we direct it in ways that aren't necessarily supportive can add to more cortisol and you know and more overwhelm in itself by the the way that we respond.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: But it's really trying its best and the mind probably gets pretty busy and involves itself in there too.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah absolutely and it's it's it's amazing sort of what you know we're trying to find a solution the body the mind the system is trying to find a solution and yes so in my case it wasn't always helpful but it I was trying you know how can I learn more how can I do more and so I ended up spending a rather ridiculous amount of money but it was that that thirst of wanting to understand.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah so thanks for sharing that but that that came to my mind really about that disconnect you know I think it's a really valid share because I think you know some of the examples that people have in more of a traditional sense you know that they feel emotional or depleted um they don't they want to go to events and things are one form.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: But you know what we see particularly in the group therapy that I facilitated was every single walk of life of different experiences and and and really unique things because if you think about it of course it's going to be unique.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: We're all completely different and then on top of that if we're kind of hiding this aspect it's interesting what will come out in the face of this secret, you know like yeah yeah I just don't think it's a coincidence that it can be very very specific.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think it's important to share things that are really personal because whilst maybe someone didn't shop necessarily they might have something that felt obscure to them in that's not in the data you know it's not in not in the podcast.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: So well now it is yeah absolutely yes we are we are indeed intricate and very different human beings with different journeys and um yeah all all all valid all valid so lovely Stacy what else do we need to chat about we've talked about your journey we've talked about working with grief and miscarriage and um and and you know sort of death in all of those areas somatic sessions working with the body working with the nervous system the importance of the lived experience as well what else how else can I be of service and share the amazing work that you do and is this all online um or do people come more in a you know in-person situation as well my private private practice is available through telehouse so online as well as in person.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: We're all in the inner west suburbs of Melbourne our studio space um an Allied Health Hub is in yeah in the inner west in Melbourne and at the moment is ran in person yeah so um a bit of both so if it was one-on-one work that anyone was looking for um that's available online but uh in-person events and um and sessions and kind of a studio setup in class style is what we do in terms of um the nervous system regulation and um and somatic supports.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes uh it's it's so important and I love the fact that from when I first started which was 2006 where I couldn't really find much or people that uh practitioners could support me that now my passion is to really share all of this work that people have that there is so much goodness available and so I am so pleased to be able to share your work because I know there are people out there where it would just be exactly what they need.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is the medicine that they need.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: Oh that's so nice.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's um you know I we went to some award night last night which is so not me especially when I left commercial media you know those types of things always looked pretty fancy and glamorous and and I hated them to be honest red carpets and all of those things this kind of vacuous conversation quite an energetic zappa I used to call it um but you know it's the first 12 months of our business we're a small family business we built this business in the depths of those is that grief um and we had a lot on the line um and so yeah it was important for us to go and and kind of just really represent the business last night.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: But I think the thing that really stuck with me is that I I'm still finding it really hard to acknowledge what we're doing because I'm so busy doing it.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so last when you say that it was so nice to hear.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: And also last night I had a bit of a breath to think about wow yeah I imagine if I was able to hear this or if I was able to go and speak to someone and then speak to them in therapy and then talk move my body in the same space you know it it yeah it was something that I found hard to articulate in terms of understanding I still think I'm very much in it.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I yeah I think that it is very purposeful and very intuitive intuitively led.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I yeah it's hard to see it from your perspective is what I'm trying to say um when we're still really in the depths um in the newness of it all so yeah I am I am proud but I think there is an aspect where there's a I don't know there's just so much to do.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah yes yes I think when we have our own business there is so much to do and um keep up the good work I think is what I'm saying.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: May it carry on so how can people find you my lovely so do share your space is called the well is that correct yeah the well hub in Spotswood um thewellhub.com.au is our website so you'll find all the information there for private practice or if you wanted to come and try some of the class sessions uh we have allied health there that support um and have a really big thread across all of our allied health practitioners and our classes for nervous system regulation but also fertility.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: We're quite excited next year to start looking into shared models of care.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: We really feel passionate about women being able to advocate and have their stories heard but have them maybe heard once not 12 times over at different parts of the city on different days.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: We know you know single handedly there's many of the practitioners that I share this wonderful space with have walked the depths of pregnancy loss and fertility treatment.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: In fact I think there's probably three quarters of us that have um so we're looking really forward to being able to offer something very united yeah in the next 12 months so look out for that and if you do have any interest in um moving into that we will be moving into a bit of a pilot program early 2027 so we'll um we'll share that stuff on our Instagram and on the website too.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome that sounds very exciting well done you Stacy and so as we bring our lovely deep conversation towards a close for people that are in the depths of grief maybe there's a miscarriage maybe it has been a stillbirth or for whatever reason that may be the little one has not made it what is your what can be your words of soothing of love that they can take with them I think I think it's okay to lose hope I think it's okay to not feel soothed I think it's okay for it to not be okay and I do believe that very slowly um with as much difficulty as it can be sorry I just coughed um I do believe that when we sit with those aspects we really can begin to heal and I don't know if uh the way forward is any other way other than the way through and so I think when we get when I ask get asked these questions or get asked kind of advice or these types of things it there often isn't any because to sit with it really is the hardest bit and often the most effective bit which is why it is so powerful because there's so many experiences in life that allow us to skip, pop around deflect mute pause avoid and this one very rarely allows us to get off scot-free with any of those options.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know it really does ask us to sit in the depths with ourselves and I think for some people who had never really even sat with themselves the depths of grief can be hard but then also having to really look at yourself and sit with yourself can be hard too.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I do think that that is the step or I guess the first place to start um and also just a permission to not have to go anywhere for a bit I like that permission to not go anywhere but so I'm writing all those down yeah so you get to really breathe into that isn't it permission to not go anywhere yeah and that's not easy when you are in pain that's not easy um but that's my answer after many years of my own lived experience after many many many hundreds and hundreds of client interactions and sitting with people in groups and one-on-one and even personally um there's often nowhere to go and that's that yeah yeah Stacey thank you from the very depths of my heart and from my being for this really deep very personal conversation on a journey in life that um you know a lot of us will have to traverse um when we're on a fertility journey and I am so honored to be able to speak to you today doing this wonderful deep work and supporting people to be able to walk through this so thank you for your time.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: Oh thank you Liz thank you for everything you do in the way that you do it.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh thank you I am like you deeply passionate I know we share that we definitely share that we do my pleasure thank you too so with that beautiful listeners if one of you or if some of you are on this deep journey of grief it's okay not to be okay and it's okay not to be soothed and you have permission to not go anywhere and know that there is this beautiful Stacy Jane Lewis here and who can support you and we're here to uh so please reach out and let me know so I can I can send you to this beautiful lady and with that sending love sending care and deep deep gratitude for listening today you take care Stacy and then for everybody else you take care too sending you lots of love thanks for joining us at the Home of Fertility we hope today's episode brought you clarity comfort and connection if this podcast resonated please share it leave a review or subscribe this helps us support more people that are on this path and if you'd like to connect or share your story find us on Instagram and Facebook at Australian Fertility Summit.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: Remember the missing people might be waiting in a story your body's wisdom take care of