Latest / Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano / Advocating for Home Birth
Transcript
- 0:03This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about the game of living in
- 0:07and with chronic pain and trauma, get into the heart of how to heal.
- 0:12I am your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan
- 0:18on discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones,
- 0:23and anybody that is interested in having their voice heard in the chronic pain and
- 0:27trauma world that we live in. So on this show, we definitely talk
- 0:40a lot about Western medicine and how I feel about it. Right in our
- 0:43standard of care, there's no standard. I don't feel like there is in
- 0:48my opinion, because it's super low. If it is, especially here in
- 0:51the States. I can only speak to the United States here and more specifically
- 0:55California. But taking my health into my own hands, with my DRPs and
- 1:00lime disease and EBV and you just name it, I've got it all right.
- 1:04It's been nothing short of a tremendous obstacle course for me. You know,
- 1:08doctor after doctor after doctor, nobody talking to each other, nobody,
- 1:12nobody really owning my care. And so I was like, well, wait
- 1:15a second, I shouldn't hold all of these people responsible for my care.
- 1:21I need to do it. And so when I decided to take that step
- 1:26and really own it and hold everybody accountable, things started to shift, right.
- 1:33And I think that a lot of our healthcare system, however it is
- 1:37run our in the States, it's almost like they feel like we're fucking stupid,
- 1:41you know, like we're onto you guys, okay, And we're starting
- 1:44to get more and more and more aware of what's actually going on in conventional
- 1:49medicine. And you guys know, there's nothing conventional about me. I require
- 1:55complete unconventional care, right, and I think all of us really do.
- 1:59Because none of us are the same person. We can't treat me like I'm
- 2:02going to treat my guest right now, right. We can't do that because
- 2:06we're all so very, very different. And I require empowerment. I don't
- 2:10know about you, guys, but empowerment feels pretty damn good. And I'm
- 2:15going to quote my guest today. I don't love that the institutions and individuals
- 2:20who run the world would like to believe that we are powerless when it comes
- 2:24to our health and wellness. Right, It's time for us to take our
- 2:29power back. I'm exhausted from feeling like I cannot choose my own healthcare regiment
- 2:35right, my body, my choice. I know we hear that all of
- 2:37the time, especially when it comes to abortion and so on and so forth.
- 2:40Cliche or not, it's true. So advocating for myself in the world
- 2:46of chronic pain and trauma is a full time job. But we're not alone
- 2:50in it. As soon as you accept that you're not alone in it,
- 2:53and you've got people like me and my guests here on your side, you're
- 2:57a winner. And wait until you get to know this guy, because he
- 3:00is a whot. We already had about thirty minutes before the episode, cracking
- 3:05out, cracking up, cracking up, So let's talk about it, all
- 3:08right, So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to my
- 3:10guest today, doctor Nathan Riley. What is going on over there? You
- 3:16know what's going on. I told you about my motorcycle and my not motorcycle,
- 3:22thank god, my mountain biking accident. I got a big swollen cheek.
- 3:24I don't know if we if you end up using video, but damn,
- 3:28my face hurts. I feel like I'm just doing my jam. I'm
- 3:31just living life here. I'm enjoying my time here already with you, so
- 3:35oh my gosh. Well, let I know, we could seriously do like
- 3:38a three four hour shows just together. Well. Doctor Riley is a board
- 3:43certified obgin and Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. He's going
- 3:49to talk to us a little bit today about stepping away from this conventional medicine
- 3:53that we were talking about, but specifically in the maternity care model, and
- 3:58how he made his choice to move into his truth to uphold the traditional practice
- 4:01of midwifery. I mean, he's all about rattling the cage right. He
- 4:05supports midwives as a collaborative physician for midwives of all varieties and is an advocate
- 4:11for home birth, which is amazing. He also requires empowerment right, and
- 4:17he leads from a place of that spot to empower women to have babies on
- 4:23their own terms, using nature as their guide. So I'm rolling out the
- 4:27red carpet for you, babe, I boof, I know it's my lovely
- 4:31thank you, thank you, and you're welcome. Well, I'd like to
- 4:35start talking about when you got fed up with conventional medicine and why, and
- 4:40then let's take it from there, Oh, lindsay, you know I've gone
- 4:44through I've done quite a bit of healing around this topic. You know.
- 4:47You have to imagine you invest about a half a million dollars in your education
- 4:51and then you give up your twenties some of your thirties, and then you
- 4:56hope that you emerge on the other side like being so st about what you
- 5:00do. And unfortunately I wasn't that guy. I was actually really really discouraged
- 5:04by what I ended up find, you know, the specialty that I found
- 5:08myself in, and I actually did more training like a real you know,
- 5:11masochist. I went to hospice in Pallative Care Fellowship at UCSD down in San
- 5:15Diego, and I did started my healing journey there. And when I'm saying
- 5:19healing, guys, I'm not meaning like my face that's beat up from the
- 5:23mountain biking accident. I mean like like a real blow to my to my
- 5:28like like though, who am I What am I doing here? Question?
- 5:31You know, Like I thought that I was gonna be doing good work and
- 5:35then you realize, oh, I could make good money, but I'm going
- 5:38to just be making money for this kind of profit driven medical system that doesn't
- 5:42really seem to give a damn about anybody, including me. In fact,
- 5:46during COVID I got fired, I was doing hospice work. I gave up
- 5:50the hospital position as an obqun I went into hospice work, and I was
- 5:54loving it. It was just like so just my life was just so full,
- 5:59and I loved getting as much time as I wanted with these these clients
- 6:01and their families who were just going through the mortality conversation. And I took
- 6:08my mask off caring for this old guy who was dying of heart failure.
- 6:11And I got fired the next day. And it was like I'm not even
- 6:14irreplaceable, like there is nothing special about me. I invested and sacrificed all
- 6:18of this time and money decades decades to this, and they could just fire
- 6:24me and replace me just like that. And so it was kind of the
- 6:27universal nudge that I needed. I don't think I would have had the courage
- 6:30to step away on my own, but it gave me that sort of I
- 6:32like was shoved out the you know, the cabin door, you know,
- 6:36and whenever you start having second thoughts about skydiving, and they're just like you're
- 6:41going right, Like I kind of needed that, otherwise I think I will
- 6:44chicken out. But since having done that, my life has been dramatically different,
- 6:48and I can actually show up for people now in the way that I
- 6:50would like to be treated if I ever go back to the hospital again.
- 6:55Yeah, exactly. So you went from doing in the hospital setting, you
- 6:59went from conventional, and you moved into this beautiful space that you've created for
- 7:02yourself, your family, your children, and obviously all of the people that
- 7:06you help support from a midwivary perspective and all of that. But I want
- 7:11to talk a little bit about what you're doing now, but I also want
- 7:14you to explain to us the difference between a midwife and a doula. I
- 7:18think that it would be good for our audience to understand the difference between those
- 7:21as we move forward. Right, so, let's describe what a birth in
- 7:26the hospital generally looks like. Whether you have a certified Nurse midwife, which
- 7:30is an RN who goes for additional training becomes a certified nurse midwife, you've
- 7:34got that, or you've got an UBI. Juan, that's really the two
- 7:36options for having a baby in the hospital, and a hospital is a great
- 7:41place for the emergency. It's like if you've got sepsis, if you lose
- 7:44a leg. I mean, hell, there's a lot of reasons to go
- 7:46to the hospital. Yeah, tidfit. So, like you know the things
- 7:53that we think about, those really really catastrophic things. Great, we have
- 7:56hospitals when you think about how birth. So the way that a hospital is
- 7:59able to do that is they've got all these resources, all these medications,
- 8:01all these staff. They have to be very efficient and they have to be
- 8:03very effective. But your goal, if you split your head open, is
- 8:07to not die and for that to get sutured up or repaired in some way.
- 8:11Right, the goal with birth is you don't want the mom or the
- 8:16baby to die, and so at all costs, we're going to do what
- 8:20is required for that mom and baby to stay alive, even if it means
- 8:22that mom has a tremendous burden of pain or distrust in the system, or
- 8:30she's got unresolved trauma in her body from being strapped crucifixion style down to an
- 8:33operating room table in order to have her guts operated on. Right, Yeah,
- 8:37it doesn't matter what the experiences, forget the journey. We just want
- 8:41that outcome and if we can do that outcome with great efficiency, meaning we're
- 8:46both effective and efficient, we can say that we did a good job.
- 8:48That's how a trauma operating room works. Thank goodness we have that. But
- 8:54is that really required for birth on the flip side in the home or let's
- 8:58say out of hospital experience, which is less than it's about one percent of
- 9:01burst maybe in the United States right now, only one percent. Maybe I'm
- 9:09surprised at that. Actually it's very, very very low. Out of the
- 9:13hospital, you can do a burst center. You can have a baby at
- 9:16home with your midwife, you can have it in a hotel, you can
- 9:18have it out in the woods with the coyotes. It doesn't really matter.
- 9:20It's out of hospital. The hair team you put together, they are not
- 9:24as focused on efficiency and efficacy. They're actually focused on you and everything surrounds
- 9:33you. So this is really the hospice care model of caring for people with
- 9:37chronic illness, where it's like, if we can't save the day with the
- 9:43heroics of pharmaceuticals and surgery, then at least let's ask what's important to you,
- 9:48and let's put our resources in an arrangement that serves you based on your
- 9:52goals. That is not what happens in maternity here in the hospital. It
- 9:56does happen in home birth, and they're still they're actually probably more effective at
- 10:01achieving that healthy amounhealthy baby without the additional burdens of all the traumas that arise
- 10:07when you're not being consented well, you're not being spoken to, well,
- 10:11you're just sort of a cog in this big giant system that is focused on
- 10:15efficiency, productivity, and profits over everything else. That is not the home
- 10:18birth experience. So in the home birth setting, usually it's a midwife.
- 10:22I attend homebirth, so I'm one of those rare doctors who goes into the
- 10:26home and sits there and waits until a baby comes. And if I need
- 10:30to bring in all of those super skills that I developed over the years,
- 10:33I will. But generally you just sit there and wait and a baby comes
- 10:37out and you say congratulations and you go home. Very very different experience if
- 10:41you were to need some if you were craving, and I recommend everybody seek
- 10:45this out, some additional advocacy and actual labor support. A doula is the
- 10:50person who's there. They're an unbiased, no skin in the game, third
- 10:54party bystander that you can yell at, that you can hold hands with,
- 10:58you can hug and cry with, you can do all of that, But
- 11:00they're not going to be the ones intervening or helping you decide if you need
- 11:03to go to the hospital, the emotional support side of it, everything else.
- 11:09Yeah, they're not helping their professionals, so they don't you know,
- 11:11they might advocate, they might give you some information, but they're not your
- 11:16midwife, they're not your doctor. That duo of a midwife and a doula
- 11:20is absolutely the best option for I'd say upwards of eighty five ninety percent of
- 11:26women in the United States. Wow, but people are still kind of confused
- 11:28about the difference. So midwise, that's why I asked, because, yeah,
- 11:31because I asked the same thing, because I I've not gone through I
- 11:35got pregnant one time and I lost the baby and it was many, many
- 11:39years ago. But so I've never gone through the birthing process. I've never
- 11:41gone through pregnancy. I've not ever gone through those things. So I can't
- 11:45speak to what that feels like. But I know how I would want it
- 11:48to be. And I think when you know, all of us little girls
- 11:52like, Oh, this is what my wedding's going to be like, this
- 11:54is what's going to be having to be well, he gets completely jaded and
- 11:58booted out from what we thought it was going to be like, right,
- 12:01But I do know that I would have gone somewhere in more of the range
- 12:03of what you're talking about, doing a home birth, doing something, but
- 12:07having someone like you on the team of care because you're an actual MD and
- 12:13it's not I mean, do you do work in the WOO world, which
- 12:16I love about you, and I love the WOOO world as a whole,
- 12:20but I like that that gives such like an awesome feeling of security and safety
- 12:24because it's a fearful time when you're a woman and you're like, I don't
- 12:28know. I mean, I've had girlfriends that have lost their babies, and
- 12:33so that's scary stuff. And when you're walking in in that not knowing how
- 12:37your body may or may not fail, you feeling feeling scared, especially if
- 12:41you're alone, you know, single moms and all of that. So I
- 12:45love that that blend, that that partnership between you and the dula and the
- 12:48midwife. I think it's just I mean, it's beautiful, and you talk
- 12:52about the transition and the spiritual transformation and honoring the sacred practice of us populating
- 13:00the damn planet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know,
- 13:03if we're going to just have the goal of making more people and those people
- 13:09are breathing in their hearts beating after the process, then we should have no
- 13:13issues with maternity care. But we have plenty of issues. I've had so
- 13:18many women who come to me and they're like, Doc, I will not
- 13:20go back to the hospital. And I could spend my time then arguing on
- 13:26behalf of the hospital system that hey, there's it's safe there. They have
- 13:30medicines, they have operations. Don't you want those things? But I don't
- 13:31do that. Instead, I say what happened in your previous birth and the
- 13:35stories that I'm hearing every single day. If I were to ignore that,
- 13:39it would be almost unethical for me to keep doing it in the hospital.
- 13:43So even a person who has an unmedicated physiologic vaginal birth without any epidural,
- 13:48without any medications, and it only takes two hours, that sounds like a
- 13:50pretty dreaming, dreamy experience, except that was my wife's experience, and she
- 13:56did not feel good about it. There was something about how she was being
- 13:58spoken to, about the energy in the room around how she is being touched,
- 14:03Like she just felt like she was a part of this assembly line thing
- 14:07and that is not that is not what most women want from this. This
- 14:11what I would say, a sacred transformation. This is not a medical procedure.
- 14:16And you're not You don't have a disease just because you got pregnant.
- 14:18So why are we going to the hospitals, Like, if that's for sick
- 14:22people, why are we doing this in the hospital. Well, maternity units
- 14:24make more money for hospitals than any other union in the hospital period. Wow,
- 14:30it's the most profitable. And the more the faster you can get them
- 14:33in and out. There's that efficiency piece. The faster your team is able
- 14:37to run and get these things and get them in and get their baby out
- 14:39and add medicines to speed it up. The more the faster you can do
- 14:41that, the more money we can make. I hate to say it,
- 14:45but it is very much a profit in productivity driven philosophy, I suppose that
- 14:50we see. Yeah, and then of course fear plays a big part into
- 14:56this. Doctors don't want to be sued. Doctors don't want to have a
- 14:58dead baby in their hands. And I say dead baby very deliberately. A
- 15:01baby dies, a baby is not breathing, and they are not going to
- 15:05grow up into a twelve year old playing soccer. That is one of the
- 15:09more tremendously hard things for us to carry, and nobody talks about it.
- 15:13Nobody, you know, we don't have social support. Everybody wants to blame
- 15:18somebody. It gets into this weird like, you know, like fucking mailstrom
- 15:22of energy, when all that a person probably really needs is just to be
- 15:26held and to be loved and to be told like it's going to be okay.
- 15:31You're never gonna heal from this totally. It's just something that we have
- 15:35to help you integrate. Otherwise it becomes trauma that is unresolved in the body.
- 15:39I know you talk a lot about this, but instead, you know,
- 15:41people are compelled to not talk about this, and they don't even want
- 15:45to say dead baby. They say things like a baby passed away. No,
- 15:48the baby fucking died. And part of the reason is that we're pushing
- 15:50the babies out before they have to come, Like why are we messing with
- 15:54this process? If we get out of the way, which is what midwives
- 15:58and doulas do. Generally. Babies do just fine, and occasionally babies need
- 16:02to be transferred to the hospital in order to get a little bit of support,
- 16:04or mom needs to be transferred. But you know, all of this
- 16:08is to say that even though women are going in and having you know,
- 16:12natural physiologic vaginal bursts, a lot of them are saying I did not feel
- 16:15good about that, and then they say, I'm not doing that again.
- 16:19And once you start to unpact that and connect with people human connection is critical
- 16:23for this, then you can start to help kind of ease them into their
- 16:27next pregnancy. And that's what I get the joy of doing, so that
- 16:30we can help to resolve that trauma and we can get some of that fear
- 16:34in, some of that shit that was thrown at them in their previous bursts.
- 16:37To get that out of the way, we have to focus on this
- 16:41incredible transformation that's coming anew in nine months after you get that positive pregnancy test.
- 16:45I I've got the chills the entire time that you are speaking. Just
- 16:49now. It's in my brain. I have and I unfortunately I have to
- 16:53go to the er and all this Boloney fairly recently. And it wasn't because
- 16:59I was having a baby. It was because my pain level was so high.
- 17:02It was just like, this is stupid. I'm calling nime on one,
- 17:03which I never do, so for me to do that is like crazy,
- 17:07that's just me. I don't have a baby in my belly. I
- 17:10don't have another person that's going to be coming out. I was fustrated the
- 17:15entire time that I was in the hospital, and there was nothing special about
- 17:19me. It was just like, we don't know. It was just such
- 17:22an unnerving place to be and I feel like, if that's the place that
- 17:27we are when we're going to be giving birth, how does that affect the
- 17:33a experience? Obviously, but how does that impact the child? And when
- 17:38it comes out and it's like smack them, go get out of here.
- 17:41We got another girl down the hall that's coming in behind you, Like,
- 17:45how does that affect the child? Yeah, it's it's actually the question that's
- 17:51been on my mind recently. In fact, next week a podcast that I
- 17:55did with doctors Monique Andrews and Timary McIntyre. They have a program called the
- 18:00Prana Foundation and some other their chiropractors, but actually they've gone, they've become
- 18:04deeply invested in polyvagel theory. We get into this topic in particular, and
- 18:08I know that you're familiar because I've listened to your show. So when a
- 18:11baby is developing in the uterus, I'm gonna there's so many ways to answer
- 18:15your question. I know. Yeah, I think this actually is related also
- 18:21to the conversation around hospital versus home birth and why would on earth would somebody
- 18:26want to be so irresponsible to have an out of hospital birth. We did
- 18:29it in our second and it was healing from my wife who had a natural
- 18:33physiologic vaginal birth, her first in a hospital setting with a great OBGYN and
- 18:37a great team, but something didn't feel right. The home birth was full
- 18:41circle for her. It was ecstatic. I don't think she would use the
- 18:44word pleasurable, but she did not use words like I was afraid. I
- 18:48didn't feel heard, I didn't feel like I was in control, like she
- 18:52was completely in control. Because everything is centered around you. So the reason
- 18:56that that's important is that as a baby develops inside the uterus, we've got
- 19:00the nervous system right, We've got our brain, we've got a spinal cord,
- 19:03We've got a bunch of nerves going in and out of the spinal cord,
- 19:04transmitting information to your processing center whatever you want to call it. From
- 19:10the outside right, this is how we get around. This is how we
- 19:12know where to walk, how to move our body. We know somebody's talking
- 19:15to us like this is important. But the nervous system has always been described
- 19:19in a very simplistic way. I think overly simplistic that you have a gas
- 19:23pedal and a brake, you've got your sympathetic comparisympathetic. And that's not that
- 19:27it's true that you have that, but it's not entirely true. In fact,
- 19:32polyvagel theory has helped provide me with such a more productive way of looking
- 19:37at this, especially as a baby is developing in the uterus and as an
- 19:41advocate for home birth, I now have more of a reason, more of
- 19:45a compulsion for this to become the default as opposed to the exception in the
- 19:49United States. So when a baby's growing inside the uterus, first they develop
- 19:55the lower part of their nervous system, their dorsal vagel. This is the
- 19:56freeze. This is where if if you are, you know, being threatened,
- 20:02you just freeze up and you go inward like it's it's the deer in
- 20:06headlights kind of thing that is going to be associated with like a heart rate
- 20:10that's in like the sixties or seventies. And you can tell this by looking
- 20:11at a baby's heart rate. They have a low heart rate, and then
- 20:14suddenly the second trimester happens and now their sympathetic tone picks up. This is
- 20:18the the the flight or fight part. This is the cranked up heart rate.
- 20:25You're ready to rock. The MMA fighters, they've got a lot of
- 20:27sympathetic tone. Catechola means epinephy and whatnot, circulating flooding them. You don't
- 20:33feel pain as much like you're ready to rock. You're going to wrestle and
- 20:36fight to the death. That develops, and you're in the baby's heart rate
- 20:40cranks up into maybe the one eighty even range, you know, one eighty
- 20:44two hundred, and then the third trimester happens and you get a sort of
- 20:48an equilibrium and you end up in the range that most people associate with a
- 20:52healthy baby, which is one ten to one sixty. That third part that
- 20:56develops is called the ventral vaguel component of the parasympathetic nervous system. It's the
- 21:00I AM. It's when you're the most fully embodied, best version of you.
- 21:03Most of us are living in the I can, which is the sympathetic
- 21:07and then hopefully not many of us, although some of us are definitely living
- 21:11in that dorsal veagel, which is the I can't. It's the freeze you
- 21:15withdraw from the world. The chronic depression, people with chronic pain end up
- 21:18in that space quite a bit. The reason this is relevant to birth is
- 21:22that the baby starts developing the I AM, that sort of final piece of
- 21:26their nervous system, through the third trimester and into six months of life.
- 21:33Why is this relevant to birth, Well, if you take a baby out,
- 21:37the baby comes out of the womb and we immediately are blasting it with
- 21:41loud noises, harsh touch, sharp needles in the heels, goop on the
- 21:47eyes, just this crazy fucking alien space where they were in the amniotic universe
- 21:52and now they're suddenly in this battlefield that is going to inhibit their ability to
- 21:57fully clarify and balance out their nervous system through the lens of polyvagel theory.
- 22:03So it's not just acceleration or break Now here's the key. The alternative to
- 22:08the hospital setting, the out of hospital setting, where my wife and I
- 22:11had ninety minutes of labor total. Baby was asleep on my wife's chest right
- 22:15afterwards. And what were we doing? Oh everly, Oh you're here.
- 22:19Look at your little hands and toes. My wife's heart is beating our baby
- 22:25girl. Her heart's beating with my wife. They're breathing together. She's feeling
- 22:29the rise and fall. This is critical for the coregulation. This coregulation is
- 22:33critical for the development in the long term well being of a baby. So
- 22:38a pre term baby has a greater chance of sudden infant death syndrome. I
- 22:41think it's I think it's multifactorial. But a giant part of this is that
- 22:47they haven't developed the full complement of their nervous system, and they're locked away
- 22:52in a little incubator and they're never being touched. Mom's voice isn't there at
- 22:56all times twenty four to seven, letting them know that you're safe. I've
- 23:00got you, I'm your mom. We're going to do this together. That
- 23:03is what out of hospital birth looks like almost every time. And so when
- 23:07we think about the chronic illnesses that impact us. We get the nervous system,
- 23:14these neurologic disorders autism, depression, anxiety. I would be remiss if
- 23:19I didn't at least suggest that the fact that forty percent of babies are coming
- 23:25out of the abdomen, not through the vagina, and not ending up right
- 23:29on their mother's beautiful, warm breasts and like smelling one another, tasting one
- 23:34another, connecting through breastfeeding, that coregulation is critical and pre term babies don't
- 23:40get that, which is why suddenly their cardiovascular system just stops working. Their
- 23:45nervous system isn't fully developed. So this is really really critical in our time,
- 23:48especially when we consider how many people were living in dorsal vagel during COVID,
- 23:52just afraid of everything in the world. You can't live you can't survive
- 23:57in dorsal vagel. So so we've got this big, big problem. And
- 24:02I think that that problem that we're seeing in the world, all of this
- 24:04anxiety and tension and angst and and like just fear of one another, this
- 24:08starts at birth. We're programming this into our kids nervous systems from day one
- 24:14of life. Everybody take a deep breath for just a second, because that
- 24:17was a lot, and it's good to hear and also very sad to hear
- 24:22on some of these because I'm like, God, I'm just sitting here thinking,
- 24:26like, I know all of my health issues. I know central,
- 24:29I know my central nervous system is jacked. I know that I've dealt with
- 24:32anxiety and depression from a very very very young age, was unable to and
- 24:37so now I'm like, wait to go, mom. Ye, but we
- 24:41didn't know any of this stuff. I mean ancestrally, yes, we do
- 24:47inside of us because we were giving birth with a stick in our mouth in
- 24:49the middle of a forest somewhere in Scotland. You know, like, give
- 24:52me a break. We did it before without all of this, right,
- 24:56and so coming back into this spiritual side of it and the emotional support side
- 25:02of it and honoring that sacred practice and experiencing the pain of birth but also
- 25:08not traumatizing yourself and your newborn baby. I mean, it's just it's nuts
- 25:12because when you think about hospital guys, you think about the bright lights,
- 25:17beeping noises like sounds and tubes and needles and all that. That is what
- 25:21setting is. It's yeah, I know, the trauma from birth for both
- 25:27the mother and the child. I think is such an important topic to talk
- 25:30about because we just don't we we're so caught up in our systems and our
- 25:37big pharma and our hospitals and profit and all of it. At the end
- 25:41of the day, they're not thinking about this wonderful child that we're going to
- 25:44be bringing into this world, and we're already giving them a map of fear
- 25:48and safety issues and developmental potential issues. I mean, it just goes on
- 25:52and on. It's it's scary. It's really scary. So you come in
- 25:59and you do what now? So now you've got your business. You run
- 26:03the holistic obgyn, Right, you are this man. You come in and
- 26:07your service is to help too in this process. Yeah, you know,
- 26:12there's this idea around, like amongst midwives who are in training and doctors who
- 26:18are in training where it's like, hey, hands off, like don't touch.
- 26:22The less you do, the better. Well, so there was a
- 26:25midwife you shared a message recently on Instagram. I can't remember her name,
- 26:29but she really brought up a really good point, which is like, if
- 26:32you want to be hands off in a berth, you have to earn that
- 26:34because only after you've seen so many catastrophes, do you know when you actually
- 26:38need to intervene? Like if you just have this magical thinking that nothing should
- 26:42be done, well you're fooling yourself and you're actually maybe putting your client in
- 26:48harm. So when I say that I don't do anything, I say that
- 26:51I only I should probably say I only do something if it's absolutely required of
- 26:56me. And that's because I know that when I start putting my hands where
- 26:59they don't belong, I create other issues that then require more intervention. And
- 27:03the less we intervene in this otherwise natural process, the better off everybody is.
- 27:07So having said that, when people come to me, the first thing
- 27:11I try to do is I tell them, don't hire me, go find
- 27:15a midwife. It's a terrible business model. I'm just gonna say, this
- 27:18is not a profit center. No, no, no, no. I
- 27:22if I wanted to get rich, I'd still be in the hospital doing hysterectomies
- 27:25and putting people in birth controls. So when they come to me, I
- 27:29say, well, tell me your story, and why is it that you
- 27:30want me to be at your birth right? Like what happened in your previous
- 27:33person? I had this traumatic thing happen or whatever. Have you considered hiring
- 27:37a midwife? No, because I heard midwives or this or not. You
- 27:40know, so I do a lot of dispelling there. And the reason I
- 27:41do that is because, even though I think I'm the bee's knees, most
- 27:45experienced midwives out there are going to be able to do what midwives do way
- 27:49better than me. A want to be midwife, Like, I can't call
- 27:53myself a midwife, even though I practiced like that, because that would be
- 27:56an insult to the lineages of badass women caring for women across the entire world.
- 28:03Like, I don't want to encroach upon that. So, going back
- 28:06to the story of me leaving the system, when I left, when I
- 28:08got fired, I mean, I'm using air quotes, but I was actually
- 28:11fired, like flat out fired for the mask thing. It was a very
- 28:15very scary at first because we were just about to have a baby and we
- 28:18lost our health insurance and all of that. But I was like, Okay,
- 28:22now I get to do things the way I want to do it.
- 28:25And I could have gone into home birth practice and found an average fee sort
- 28:30of structure that would work based on what other midwives are charging but I kind
- 28:33of felt like, you know, midwives have taught me so much. I
- 28:36have learned how to be a better man, father, husband, and doctor
- 28:40because of midwives. If I really believe in changing maternity care, I know
- 28:44that midwives do this better. So let me actually lend my support to them,
- 28:47and I started collaborating with midwives around the country. I still do this
- 28:49because many states require midwives cpm C and ms whatever to have a supervising physician,
- 28:56which is the biggest bunch of bologny ever, because physicians don't do midwiffrey,
- 29:00why would they be supervising midwives. But anyways, in order to support
- 29:03them, they pay me on a monthly basis. They can reach out for
- 29:07consultation, I can write meds, I can sign orders, all of that
- 29:08for them. And despite my efforts there, I was still finding that women
- 29:15were coming to me and if if I couldn't convince them to find a midwife,
- 29:18usually it was because they had some sort of condition that the midwife could
- 29:22not attend to, so like pre acclamsia, or the baby's a little small,
- 29:26or maybe the baby's breach, or maybe there's twins and whatever. Every
- 29:30state is a little different, so it was like, shit, you've had
- 29:33I have a client coming up on Thanksgiving Day. Actually she's had four c
- 29:37sections and she's pregnant again, and she does not want to go into the
- 29:41hospital. Why because her fourth baby at the six month vaccine visit a couple
- 29:45of days after that, was paralyzed from the neck down and has now a
- 29:48feeding tube and a tracheostomy. So she's like, Doc, if you don't
- 29:53help me, I'm going to do it myself. And I was like,
- 29:55well, fuck man, Like I'm in, Like, I'm willing to help
- 29:57you. But the next step is so I tell that because I'm only taking
- 30:03super high risk people and lo and behold, they're still doing just fine at
- 30:06home. But here's the kicker, And this I know is so important to
- 30:10you. In fact, I could talk to you on my podcast and we'll
- 30:14do that in the future. Around personal accountability. There's a lot of people
- 30:18out there that have working arms and legs. They are white, they're set.
- 30:22We're just gonna play into this, this whole narrative. Your white cysts.
- 30:26You're Catholic and you have operational arms and life and you're good looking.
- 30:30If you get gestational diabetes or pre acclamsia. I'm sorry, but you're not
- 30:34a very healthy person and you didn't put all of those privileged cards to use
- 30:40in order to optimize your health and your childbirth experience. Now that's not to
- 30:44say that there aren't exceptions, but what I did there is I said,
- 30:48I'm giving you every benefit of the doubt based on our societal's fuckery around who's
- 30:52the haves and the have nots. So in your case, I know that
- 30:56you've got you've got you know this regional syndrome and whatnot. You can wake
- 31:00up every single day and say, well, fuck it, I'm just a
- 31:03person who has pain or whatever. Instead, I meet a person who's wear's
- 31:07funny T shirts, makes me laugh, is very pretty, and is just
- 31:11doing the best with what she's got. This is relevant to this birth conversation
- 31:17because everybody out there wants to have a dream birth, but they don't want
- 31:19to take accountability for their decisions. If you can just take responsibility right now
- 31:26for how you're showing up, how you're talking to people, how you're loving
- 31:27yourself, like, how you're spending your time, where's your energy and focus
- 31:32going, everything else changes, But that is something we are sorely lacking in
- 31:37the United States, especially in maternity care, so they have to I have
- 31:41a stern conversation that I cannot guarantee anything. I am here to apply my
- 31:47skill set to ensure that we get you to whatever your goal is. And
- 31:51if you say, hey, I'd rather have a dead baby on my hands
- 31:52than go back to the hospital, Okay, that's probably not the choice I
- 31:56would make or many other people would make, but that is you making an
- 31:59adult decision, and I honor that. That's what we need so much more
- 32:02of. Whether it's another COVID thing or whatever else. People just need to
- 32:06start taking responsibility for their actions and the outcomes of those actions. That's what
- 32:10freedom really looks like. And I don't think anybody even really appreciates what real
- 32:14freedom means. You're more free than so many people I know that are not
- 32:19found by, you know, a pain disorder like you are like a ball
- 32:22of sunshine compared to a lot of other people that don't make that they actively
- 32:27decide not to be you. That's exactly right. So sad, it is
- 32:30sad, and I think that that is And thank you for all of the
- 32:34kind words that you said about me. I almost cried for just a second
- 32:37because everybody knows that I cry, But it means a lot for me.
- 32:42Thank you for you to say that, and it is it is. It
- 32:46is advocating for yourself, and it's something that when I decided that I wanted
- 32:51to do this show, I came from a very different place than where I
- 32:53am right now, and so the original pen Game podcast was not what it
- 32:57is today. It never started because is not the right way for me to
- 33:00go about handling life stuff and coping with things and the stress that that being
- 33:06in chronic pain all day and being sick all day puts on your body,
- 33:09puts on your spirit, puts on your spouse, puts on you know,
- 33:12all of that. I mean, my sweetie is just like he's exhausted for
- 33:15me because he's watching this all unfold. But he also is my biggest cheerleader
- 33:20when it comes to He knows that I show fucking up every day and I
- 33:24advocate for myself and I'm advocating for other people, and that is why I
- 33:28am here, and that's why you are here. It sounds like you've got
- 33:31such a good healing supportive like your role and your advocacy for these people it's
- 33:38it's absolutely amazing. And what are you doing for us as a whole,
- 33:45for women? Are you doing advocating for us? Like? At what level
- 33:50are you doing that? Are you working with people in the government, are
- 33:53you, I mean outside of what you're doing on the day to day,
- 33:55are you working on other things? I'm just curious, Uh. I I
- 34:04don't like using should, would, could? I probably should be in the
- 34:08governmental like politicking and all of that. Yeah, But there's a part of
- 34:15me that's a little bit cynical. Remember I described that like I was healing
- 34:19from the you know, the journey and looking back and realizing that I waste
- 34:22my whole life, like from age eighteen deciding I was going to be pre
- 34:27med I guess I probably could take that approach. But there's a part of
- 34:34me that is still cynical about what is actually possible given our current state of
- 34:40affairs within our governmental institutions. I'm not like I have no I really don't
- 34:46give a shit if you vote red or blue. I've gone through periods recently
- 34:51of like I don't even want to be in this country anymore. And that's
- 34:54not to say I'm not grateful for living here. It's just like it's like
- 34:59you're giving me who was at South Park was like, you're giving me the
- 35:01option of a douchebag or a turd sandwich. And I don't even believe that
- 35:07that elected official at that level is making any difference. I have seen so
- 35:14much corruption and so much like corporate toocracy grifting that has directly impacted the care
- 35:22that I provide to my family, to me, to my clients. And
- 35:25COVID was kind of the final nail. There was just so much wrong from
- 35:30even a strictly epidemia logic perspective on how that was managed that I was like,
- 35:37oh my god, I was getting so optimistic. I was actually thinking
- 35:39maybe council seats, Like maybe I can make a difference in Kentucky, even
- 35:43around something like abortion. Yeah, and it was before the neck tattoo is,
- 35:47by the way, I don't know, I don't know how that.
- 35:52I don't know if that would go so well. But well not if you're
- 35:54voting red. No, no, probably not. Yeah, so you know,
- 36:00I and then even uh, I got off my train of thought there.
- 36:04But but I saw I was becoming so much more optimistic, and I
- 36:08was like a Bernie Sanders guy. I was like progression, Yeah, like
- 36:12we're we're seeing change. Like I don't know what happened, but something just
- 36:16snapped for me. And I was like, I don't think anybody really,
- 36:21like really cares at that level. I just can't trust you anymore. And
- 36:24the COVID thing exposed so much issue, so many issues that I already had
- 36:29a like kind of knew about. But then suddenly everybody was like, like
- 36:32you had mentioned this earlier. Suddenly everybody was like hailing pharmaceutical companies as being
- 36:37the good guys. And I was like, are you guys out of your
- 36:40mind? The amount of ongoing lawsuits for something like the Garda sil vaccine,
- 36:45the one to prevent cervical cancer. There's ongoing litigation in every single state.
- 36:50Are you guys fucking insane? And then I was like, wait, hold
- 36:53on, I have to be compassionate about everybody's journey and this and that.
- 36:55And then I was like, I can't be running for office and getting myself
- 37:00into this because I become so emotionally invested in the outcome that it's maybe not
- 37:06for me. Maybe I'm not good at just saying the thing that needs to
- 37:07be said to get it past, Like I'm just not that guy. So
- 37:10instead I work in my own little enclave. I work with an individuals one
- 37:15on one, and I try to see like where, how where can I
- 37:19help you? So even if you want to have a hospital earth, how
- 37:21can I help you navigate that? That's where I feel like maybe that's the
- 37:25optimist in me coming back, Like one by one, I get to know
- 37:30people. I get them to love me, and then I get and then
- 37:32I can love them back. But one thing I'll add and then I'll stop
- 37:36talking. But it's a podcast what we're supposed to be doing though, Yeah,
- 37:40okay, well that's true. I think one of the biggest pains that
- 37:45we're going the growing pains that we're going through right now, is everybody is
- 37:47craving authenticity and they won't admit it to themselves. Like you really actually want
- 37:53somebody to be authentically genuinely them, even if you don't like what they have
- 37:58to say, You want them to be just show them all of your cards.
- 38:01That's what we want so badly, But then we punish people for doing
- 38:05that because we're so insecure about showing that ourselves. So if I went into
- 38:09politics, I wouldn't be able to be authentically me, and I can't be
- 38:13anybody but me, and you can't be me either, because I'm fucking Nathan
- 38:15Riley. Yeah exactly, you do you, I'll do me, and we'll
- 38:22shake hands and somewhere in the middle. Like so anyways, that authenticity thing,
- 38:27I just see it lacking everywhere, all of the like five hacks to
- 38:30fix endometriosis, the greatest molecular hydrogen therapy machine. Like you guys are just
- 38:36blowing smoke up each other's asses, Like who's actually doing the work. I'm
- 38:40doing the work and you're doing the work, Like these podcasts are, these
- 38:44conversations are doing the work. So the smoke screen of what people think they
- 38:50need because they're being billboarded at every moment and ever every day, there's this
- 38:53little part of us that wance that authenticity. And I can say that when
- 38:57I die, whether it's tomorrow or fifty years from now, I have been
- 39:00authentically me from the moment I put on my big boy pants when I was
- 39:04eighteen. Maybe it wasn't eighteen, probably like twenty eight. You're a man,
- 39:08let's be real, twenty eight Yeah, yeah, right, right right.
- 39:14I can say I've been authentically me and that feels really really good.
- 39:16If I just keep doing that, I think I'm going to be just fine.
- 39:19And I think You're going to be just fine because you're authentically Lindsey.
- 39:22Yeah I am, And I agree with that entirely because being you know,
- 39:28I ask these people to come onto this show and be a guest here and
- 39:30to share their stories. And if I'm not going to be authentic and I'm
- 39:34not going to be real and I'm not going to be raw and gritty and
- 39:37vulnerable and honest and open and bleed all over this microphone, then I have
- 39:43no business being behind it. Because the whole point is that I'm trying to
- 39:47shake some cages. I'm trying to rattle us up to pay more attention,
- 39:51to take our own healthcare into our own hands and take it away from the
- 39:55people that are making decisions for our bodies and for us. They don't live
- 40:00in it. They don't know what I feel. All I know is that
- 40:01I've explained my story to so many doctors and nobody has gone home and said,
- 40:07you know what, I'm going to figure out how we're going to fucking
- 40:08fix this girl? Yeah, not one time. And so here I am
- 40:13trying to create an environment, and I've all kinds of things that are coming
- 40:16out that it's going to be amazing for my listeners and for everybody in this
- 40:20entire planet from my perspective, to help shift this because I hate our healthcare
- 40:27system and I hate the way I have been treated within it. Pregnant or
- 40:30not, it doesn't matter. If we are not advocating for ourselves, then,
- 40:32like you said, just nobody else is going to do it. Yeah,
- 40:35nobody else going to do it of it. So now I have to
- 40:37look out for yourself and hopefully that means that that that love. So,
- 40:42so here's the I love that you brought this up, Lindsay. So,
- 40:44like, we have a whole bunch of broken down doctors and nurses, right,
- 40:47They're supposed to be caring for other people, yet they're working within a
- 40:50system that has dehumanized them from the moment they set foot into their first training
- 40:53program. Where you're I mean, I had a program director tell me your
- 40:57family needs you're distracted, Your family needs to know they come second now because
- 41:00you're a doctor. And I was like, oh my god, what the
- 41:04fuck am I doing. You're like, well, I'm married to my high
- 41:06school sweetheart. She's a megababe. We've had two babies together, and I
- 41:08find her hotter than ever, and I just want to sometimes just sit down
- 41:12and watch TV with her and give her a foot rub. And that's not
- 41:15going to be that's going to be preceded by my work responsibilities. Like I
- 41:20have deep compassion for all these healthcare workers who have never been incentivized to love
- 41:24themselves. If you can't love yourself, how are you possibly going to care
- 41:29for somebody with chronic regional pain syndrome. That's a really tall ask of somebody.
- 41:34So the whole foundation of what we call medicine needs to just be shifted.
- 41:38And I don't know how we do that. People say politics and policy
- 41:42and all this, like I don't know if that's really it. I think
- 41:44it comes down to this. And there's a reason I don't work in that
- 41:47system because I didn't see it possible that I could change it from within.
- 41:51Well you can't, and it's one of the reasons why so many people are
- 41:53popping out of corporate America too. I mean, I couldn't ever do it
- 41:57because it's just not my jam. It's just one of those things where we
- 42:00have to we have to. We have to love ourselves and choose us first,
- 42:04because other than that, if we're choosing everybody before us and we're choosing
- 42:08the patriarchy, we're chasing these big, huge dreams that we thought we were
- 42:13going to be having instead of chasing your own health and your own wellness and
- 42:16your own care that you're gonna suck for everybody in your life. And when
- 42:21you start focusing on you, it's a win for everybody because it goes,
- 42:25it rolls down right. I can't be on the bottom of that ladder.
- 42:30I have to be at the top. And when you start to shift that
- 42:32mindset, and it's hard to do, and it's not gonna happen overnight,
- 42:36But when you start to chip away a little bit at that mindset and changing
- 42:38your focus so that it's more on you and your well being and your healthcare
- 42:42and advocating for your own body and your family and your spouse and what have
- 42:45you, it thinks shift. Yes, it's pretty it's pretty amazing. How
- 42:51long have you been doing what you're doing? Well? It got fired September
- 42:57third, twenty twenty one, so it's only been about three years that I've
- 43:01been fully immersed in what I'm doing now, but in that time I have
- 43:07I mean it fully immersed in the sense that like I've got no other income,
- 43:09I need to start making money, Like because we've got bills, we
- 43:14had to buy health insurance. Who knew? Who knew that health insurance was
- 43:16so expensive? Holy shit, like so expensive. And I have like the
- 43:22Primo primo ppo, you know, planning California, and I still can't get
- 43:28like acupuncture or chirotic I mean, like, give me a break, get
- 43:31to forget. These insurance brokers are just full of shit. So I know.
- 43:37But I started up doing my original podcast, which is now being rebooted.
- 43:40It's the Obiguio Wino podcast, where I review the clinical summaries and put
- 43:45in part some of my insights from a functional medicine and even a holistic lifestyle
- 43:51coach background and home birth and all of that. I impart that in there.
- 43:53But I started doing that when I was in fellowship in San Diego,
- 43:58So that was in like twenty nine, And as I was recording those summaries,
- 44:02it was like, really to help me study for my surgical board exams,
- 44:06which is a gnarly shit fest five hours just being peppered with questions,
- 44:09very high fail rate, like twenty percent of people don't pass. So from
- 44:15a board standpoint, that was like a really hard thing. So I was
- 44:17I was going through all of a COG's you know, practice bulletins and all
- 44:21their guidelines, and as I was publishing these, I thought it would be
- 44:23helpful to other Obi Juan's But it was all these midwives and doulas who were
- 44:28listening, and I was like, you guys like this, that's that's cool,
- 44:30And I just started exploring that because I loved midwives, I didn't have
- 44:34any skin in the game. I was still a hospital based Obi jun working
- 44:37full time at Scripts and Ensinnitas. Oh. But then I but I was
- 44:40like, well, I was paring a bottle of wine with each episode,
- 44:44and I just was having so much fun with it. And then I got
- 44:45through all of every one of their guidelines. There was an episode for each
- 44:47and I stopped doing the podcast and started doing my current one. But what
- 44:52I learned through that was that this the ability to build bridges with out of
- 44:57hospital you know, commune need birth workers was actually something that I really loved
- 45:02doing, Like if if I could get a little bit of trust from that
- 45:07community, imagine how we could learn from one another. And that's that kind
- 45:09of set the stage I think for what I'm for where I'm at now.
- 45:13But I've also had so many people reaching out now for my support that we
- 45:17had to come up. We started launching programs. We've got one for pregnancy
- 45:21and postpartum support, which is this massive undertaking, but it's called the Borton
- 45:24Free Method. We are now launching clear and Free, which is your holistic
- 45:29solution to persistent HPV. You wanted to talk about fuckering the medical system man
- 45:34the Gardasil vaccine and how we're managing PAP smears and HPV screens. Holy shit,
- 45:39it is heartbreaking. It is really really bad what we're doing out there.
- 45:45That just makes me. I have HPV even But if you don't have
- 45:46HPV, you're a fucking loser. I mean, come on, let's be
- 45:49real. People have HPV. Yeah, give me a break. I mean,
- 45:54yeah, I mean it is what it is. I mean I had
- 45:57fun getting it, so you know there's that. Did you have fun?
- 46:04What did you learn? Did you have fun getting HPV? Why think it's
- 46:09been a real word of a time. No, it's just it's yeah,
- 46:14I mean you can go down this slippery slow mean, we could talk for
- 46:16you know, five hours more than that just on that alone. It's just
- 46:20it's it's mind boggling. But I am so grateful to have met you because
- 46:24it's a conversation that we've not had on this show yet in relation to what
- 46:28we've been talking about today, and it's eye opening to me in so many
- 46:32ways. And I hope that there are mothers and to be mothers and to
- 46:36be fathers that have been listening today because one of the things that I love
- 46:39about you too is how this process for you really it really really made you
- 46:45such a good father and yeah, like just that transition into being a father
- 46:51and all of that, How how this has made you just such an incredible
- 46:55man, incredible husband, incredible you know, father and all of that through
- 46:59this process. Because I think that the fathers are missed a lot in this
- 47:04process as well, and you know, just the mom's having the baby,
- 47:07well the dad also kind of has a little bit to do with it.
- 47:10Here, can you speak just for a moment a little bit about the fatherhood
- 47:14side before we before we hit the dusty trail here, let me start by
- 47:16saying that you don't get the birth or the kids that you want. You
- 47:21get the birth or the kids that you need. And it's like going to
- 47:23burning Man or doing mushrooms. You don't get the trip you want. You
- 47:27get the trip you need. Like, where do I start with that one?
- 47:34No, it's it's it's a good it's a it's a lovely God.
- 47:36It's such a beautiful conversation that is starting to unfold. And I think I'll
- 47:40start by saying that when I was in my training, you know, it
- 47:44was like the dad wants to be involved, he wants to cut the cord
- 47:45in this and that, and it was like, okay, dad, cut
- 47:47the cord or whatever you are. Yeah, we've kind of just the sort
- 47:53of mystical side of this birth experience and the role of a father, a
- 47:57conscious like man in the room has there's two ways that this has gone.
- 48:01In one camp, it's let's bring them in and let them cut the cord.
- 48:05Oh data, yeah, cut the cord, and it's like infantilizing.
- 48:08On the other hand, there's a lot of women out there that are like
- 48:10men shouldn't be evolved in birth, and a lot of people are going to
- 48:13hear this episode and be like what's this, bucking guy I have to do
- 48:15with birth? Like birth belongs to women. And I get that. I
- 48:17hear that. It's everything has been taken from like the ruling elites, generally
- 48:22white European men, over the throughout human history. I get that, And
- 48:29a true feminist is going to honor what the divine masculine in all of us
- 48:32brings to the conversation. We unfortunately have been living in a hyper masculine,
- 48:37patriarchal, hierarchical, hegemonical society for time immemorial. So when we start to
- 48:47push back, when we start to say, you know, feminine, feminine,
- 48:50feminine, I am all for that, and I want people to consider
- 48:54that this is not like male female penis ball. But we're not talking about
- 48:59that. We're talking about the energetics of the sun and the moon, the
- 49:02moon being the yin, the feminine, the sun being the young, the
- 49:07masculine, the Tao. Like a lot of our Eastern philosophies, they honor
- 49:12this as a part of an important part of being alive and being well and
- 49:15being well grounded in your sort of full embodiment as a human. You have
- 49:21the yin and yong symbol where one consumes the other in this ever going cycle.
- 49:24The center point is the way of the Tao. You have these two
- 49:28forces at play in your wiring, in your house, and every component of
- 49:32the universe. These divine, these sacred polarities are everything in childbirth. So
- 49:39there are men out there who don't just want to be there cutting the cord.
- 49:44They want to be fully immersed in the most magical thing that a man
- 49:47could ever possibly be witnessed to. And it's their own child. That is
- 49:52the most compelling thing that any man will ever go through, is witnessing the
- 49:58birth of their own child. And if you if you don't think that,
- 50:00then you weren't there, like like you weren't there if you don't believe that.
- 50:05So now that doesn't mean every man has to be or every young boy
- 50:09has to have a baby and be a father in order to become a man.
- 50:14And if you're a man and you want to have a real growth like
- 50:19rocket ship to like real masculinity, taking advantage of the invitation and opportunity to
- 50:24sit with the person you love the most while they are bringing your baby earthside
- 50:30is the ultimate right of passage in a world that is devoid of rights of
- 50:34passage. So there's an opportunity there for you to be the mountain and to
- 50:37witness a person going through the tribulation of their life without coming to it with
- 50:43a solution, without interrupting it, without intervening in some way. That shows
- 50:46that you're the like the CEO or whatever you know, whatever you were taught
- 50:51by your dad or grandfather. Being able to hold space as the mountain does
- 50:54for the careeming, raging river running through the valley. That is the role,
- 50:59the opportunity for a man, and being good at that is going to
- 51:04change your sex life. It's going to change how you relate to your mother,
- 51:07your sister, your children, yourself. Being able to hold space is
- 51:12not something that a lot of people are really dialed in on, but birth
- 51:15is the ultimate opportunity to start exercising that. So I bring a lot of
- 51:20men into my conversations. In the Born Free Method program, there's a whole
- 51:22unit dedicated to the dads. You never get it right when it's time,
- 51:27but in retrospect you always think about, like wow, like what a privilege
- 51:31that I was invited into this space, Like what an awesome opportunity to be
- 51:36a part of this and it's way beyond cutting the cord. Wow, that
- 51:40was so eloquently put because I like that we're giving some space, holding space
- 51:46for the fathers in this part, because I think that they end up getting
- 51:50kind of lost in the shuffle of it. Yeah, and I definitely want
- 51:53to honor that part of you know, I don't know, bringing a child
- 51:57into the world kind of important. I mean, I don't know. Yeah,
- 52:04this has been so incredibly wonderful. I want to keep talking to you,
- 52:08but we can't. Before we leave, is there anything that you'd like
- 52:13to leave our listeners with? And also we need to find out where we
- 52:16find you online because I know you've got a bunch of new stuff coming out.
- 52:20The thing I want to leave people with is stop taking this so seriously,
- 52:24Like, give yourself a break, give everybody a break. Don't go
- 52:28on Twitter and start unleashing hell on people because they said something about Israel or
- 52:31Gaza or something that you don't agree with. Stop taking this so seriously and
- 52:36just do your very best in trust that every single person that crosses your path
- 52:39is doing their very best. Hold a little bit of space, give them
- 52:44a little bit of grace. And oh that's a T shirt. Right there
- 52:45that is yeah, yeah, and just stop like just stop carry like stop
- 52:53being so cynical and so serious about everything, like there is so many beautiful
- 52:59flowers to smell. There was this National Geographic photojournalist that this was before COVID,
- 53:04but he had said, you know, I have the best job in
- 53:07the world. He did a TED talk and he said, I have the
- 53:07best job in the world. I get to go around the world and take
- 53:10pictures of beautiful things. And he said, if you don't have a job
- 53:15like that, you're going to start to believe that the world is a fearful,
- 53:20terrible place where everything is falling apart. And maybe it's true. I
- 53:22don't know, but in my direct experience with life, there's a lot of
- 53:27beautiful things. There's a lot of beautiful things to taste, beverages to consume,
- 53:31drugs to imbibe, sex to be had, flowers to be smelled,
- 53:37trees to admire. Like we're in Kentucky. I was just in Pittsburgh and
- 53:39there was like blazing red and orange yellow in my hometown. Like this photojournalist
- 53:45said, don't forget that there is so much beauty out there. So guys
- 53:51like just stop taking everything so seriously and literally stop and smell the flowers.
- 53:55There is so much out there for you to see and for you to enjoy
- 54:00in whatever time you have left on this planet. Yeah, I mean it
- 54:02gives us an opportunity to go out and get HPV. Yeah, go get
- 54:06your go, get some HPV. Everybody else We're gonna leave with that,
- 54:10because that is a very Lindsy way at it. Do it. We're gonna
- 54:15come on, gotta get them all, gotta collect them all. Oh my
- 54:21god, Well, thank you so much leaving it with this, because we
- 54:23have to thank you so much for your time here today with me. This
- 54:28has just been epic, beyond epic. It's been really nice to get to
- 54:30know you even further than what we've already done. So thanks for your time,
- 54:32man, I really appreciate it. Likewise, oh, can I tell
- 54:36people where to find me? I forgot to even say that. Yeah,
- 54:37that's okay. If we were talking about HPV and flowers, I mean we
- 54:40can get to strated. I like poetic narcissism took over a little bit.
- 54:47So. Pregnancy and Postpartum support bornfreemethod dot com for people who are struggling with
- 54:52a conversation on any vaccines, immune system HPV, PAP smears all of the
- 54:58cervical cancer screening stuff. I'll whole lifestyle program clear in for our clear HPV
- 55:02dot com. I'm on Instagram at Nathan Riley Obijuan. I've got a podcast
- 55:07called The Holistic Obijuan Podcast. The other one's called the Obi Gino Wino Podcast.
- 55:10But go to Beloved Holistics dot com. That's my website where you can
- 55:14find most of that. Otherwise, man, I I wouldn't. I could
- 55:20even leave my phone number. I don't really care. I really just love
- 55:22connecting with people. I won't do that because you know, don't do that.
- 55:24Let's not do that. But I really do love hearing from people,
- 55:28and Lindsay, to be invited into conversations like this is it's like a way
- 55:32of being. I just love how you are and to be able to coregulate
- 55:37with you for an hour and a half has just been a joy. So
- 55:38thank you, thank you. That's You've just I feel like I'm blushing a
- 55:43little bit. You've been giving me so many accolades throughout this entire episode.
- 55:45Now that's the HPV. That's not blood. You're not blessed that my bad
- 55:49that's my badness right. Oh my god, your HP show there it is.
- 55:57Well, thank you again for your time and you are just incredible.
- 56:00And keep on doing what you're doing because we got to do it one,
- 56:02you know, one person at a time. We just keep on going.
- 56:06That's what that's what we need to do. Yeah, thank you so much.
- 56:09Thank you. I'm gonna go ic my face. You are exclusively invited
- 56:15to share this empowering and sacred VIP pain journey together. Let's get to the
- 56:20heart of how to heal with you by my side. I'd love to have
- 56:23my community of listeners help drive some more traffic to the show so we can
- 56:27continue to help others on their journeys through pain and trauma together. So let's
- 56:30do some reviews of the show if you could, that would be helpful.
- 56:32And also, just like Nathan said he was talking about, hey, he
- 56:36loves connecting with people. If you know somebody that is going through something similar
- 56:39to what we've been talking about today, send them our way, send them
- 56:43to me, send them to Nathan. We are here. We would love
- 56:45to connect with them and hear your heartfelt stories of strength and wisdom and grit
- 56:50and here to help support in anything that we can. Please follow the Pain
- 56:53Game Podcast wherever you digest your podcast content, we will be there. Visit
- 56:58us at the pain Game podcast dot com and follow us on all the socials.
- 57:01Thanks for listening to my little VIPs. Catch you on the other side.