Season 2 Ep1 Welcome to Reproductive Rebel Reboot

Welcome to Season 2 of the Reproductive Rebel Podcast!

It's hard to believe that this passion project of mine is a year old already - but here we are! It's time to celebrate!

Kicking off the new season we take it back to where it all began. A woman with a passion to save the world - one uterus at a time.

Interesting in learning more about how to empower your healing journey? Check out all the course offerings on the Tao of Women Institute page.

Transcript

Adrienne: 0:00

Welcome back to another episode of the Reproductive Rebel Podcast. This week's episode is celebrating where it all began. I'm so grateful for this community that is growing around the show, and for those of you who are new, This is an episode you won't want to miss. Join us this week as we start where it all began with a passionate woman on a mission to change the world one uterus at a time. Hi, I'm Adrienne Irizarry. I'm an eastern medicine practitioner who is passionate about women's health and helping women to live their best lives. My goal is to put you in the driver's seat of your menstrual health offering period solutions for a symptom-free life. Statements made in this program are for educational purposes only, and not intended as a substitution for medical consultation or advice. We do not claim to diagnose, treat, or cure any diseases. This podcast is inclusive and welcomes all gender identities. The focus of the program is on biological function, and we will use the term women throughout, but it is referencing physiological and social challenges for biology. Not identity. Come as you are. I am happy you're here and welcome all performances of identity. I hope you find something helpful in this show. As women, our voices have been muted for generations. It's just part of our cultural fabric. I will do a whole episode on the origin, the gynecology, and this topic later, but collectively, our power has been taken from us. By the time my clients reach me, they have often been through years of not feeling heard by their practitioner. for some their experiences having symptoms and having those symptoms dismissed as all in their head. For others, they have that women's wisdom knowing and they just know that something is off. But because of the unspoken cultural belief that women are hysterical, their lived experiences downplayed, don't even get me started on our cultural narrative around PMs. That's for another. I cannot speak for women of color. I am white, and I know that my lived experience with having my voice heard is very different. I do, however, know that my clients of color have the most heartbreaking stories by far when they are trying to seek help for their bodies. I get that some of this is the result of keeping on a schedule. Medicine is a business and you have to get through a certain number of visits a day to keep the lights on. But just for a moment, close your eyes and think about what it feels like when you feel truly heard. You feel seen, you feel like your voice matters. Do you feel your anxiety about this visit starting to melt? I don't know about you, but I have the worst case of white coat syndrome. I go into the doctor's office feeling just fine, and as soon as I'm in the exam room, my blood pressure skyrockets and I can't keep my thoughts straight. The first few minutes I get with my provider are over in a flash and I'm always left wishing I had remembered to ask. Just a few more clarifying questions. Now, like I said before, I am not trying to demonize the allopathic model. Every model has its limitations. Believe me, if I'm having an ectopic pregnancy, I want a skilled ob gyn to be handling my surgery and save my life. But what I do want to highlight in this program is that we have cultural subtexts that have gone on for far too long that disempower women, and it's part of our approach to healthcare that needs to change. I also wish to shed light on less mainstream approaches to reproductive care that are effective and gentle. traditions that have been used for centuries around the world and lost favor during the rise of Western gynecology. While there is no quick fix for quality time with your doctor, my hope is that these episodes will help help you to structure your thinking so that when you do need to reach out to an allopathic practitioner, you know what to. you know what they're looking for so that you can be heard and make the most out of the few minutes that you have with them. Hello and welcome to Reproductive Rebel. I am your hostess Adrian Iri, and I am so glad you're here. I am a certified peri steam hydrotherapist. Herbalist sound healer, and Chinese nutritional therapist. I'll explain more about what each of these modalities do in the work that I do in women's health during our time together. But needless to say, I'm a practitioner who wants to make a difference for our generation and future generations. I started this podcast because I am so frustrated with the way that women's health is treated in this country. And when I say this country, I mean the United States, but this is a problem that is found in a lot of Western culture in general. I am frustrated as both a practitioner and as a consumer, and I wanted to let women know that they have choices and resources available to them. If you have joined us, then you are likely as frustrated as I am with a general lack of information and empowerment in the women's health. I see you. I hear you, and I am so glad that you have joined us for this journey. This podcast is my attempt to help as many women as I can live their best and fullest lives. We will discuss alternative medicine options for supporting your body. Address controversial topics around women's health, head-on, provide resources for you to make informed and aligned decisions about your body and your health and so much more. women are intuitive by nature. We just know when something's. You know what I mean? Have you ever walked into your doctor's office before completely convinced that you have an infection only for them to tell you that the test is negative? I have a lot of clients that come into my practice that have had that experience, and generally they walk out of that office door thinking, but I still have these symptoms. What the heck is going on? How could I possibly not have an infection? Your intuition never lies. Sometimes we just need a different way of measuring what feels out of balance in our bodies. That's where this podcast comes in. I want you to know what is out there to help you get to the bottom of things that just don't sit right with you. This is not designed as a program to bash allopathic medicine. Well, mostly. do I believe that there are weaknesses in the allopathic? absolutely. Do. I believe that there can be a synergy between allopathic and holistic models that are to the benefit of the patient 110%. All of the conversations on reproductive Rebel are designed to inform, offer other lenses with which to look at reproductive health and empower you to live in harmony with and in your. I intend to bring allopathic practitioners to the conversation, integrative health practitioners, eastern medicine practitioners, and more. There is no one way to address a person's needs, but the strongest approaches take into consideration that you are not a sum of parts. You are complex interworking of physical, emotional, and spiritual energy. When not working in concert with one another yields symptoms in other areas. So why does this topic fire me up so much? Well, I spent years suffering. I felt like my body ran the show and I was just along for the ride. I had to plan my activities around my period. I had to plan to have enough paper products on hand, so that should my period sneak up on me unexpectedly. I was not caught off. I had paper products stuffed in every suitcase, purse, and zippered pocket you could possibly imagine, because when my period started, it was like the floodgates of hell had opened, and that was not the situation. You could get caught without paper products. I had to plan around headaches, bloating, and intense pain that would arrive just before and in the early stages of my period. I mean, who wants to wear a form fitting dress for pictures when you're bloated just before your period? Am I right? Because I had such outrageously heavy cycles and so much pain. I was a product of being put on the pill to manage those symptoms like so many other women, unfortunately. I ended up having a heart attack due to birth control at the age of 25. I was one of the lucky ones who had an ER doctor whose first question to me was, Are you on birth control? And when I said yes, she went into full motion yelling for people in the hallway. My gurney started rolling out of the room all to save my life while telling me over my shoulder as my gurney went whizzing down the hallway that I needed to stop taking the birth control a week after that. My blood pressure returned to normal and I've had no heart issues since. I am so grateful. I struggled with unexplained infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss, and no allopathic provider could tell me why. And believe me, I saw a lot of them. Eastern medicine gave me the answers I was looking for to all of it. The irregular cycles. The crazy periods, the endometriosis, and that why that I was struggling with in terms of my fertility, literally all of it. It's why I became the practitioner that I am today. I saw so much wisdom in the eastern way of moving through the world, the energetic system and the way of. While I think that all modalities have their strengths and weaknesses I offer in this show another way of looking at your reproductive health, whether your goal is to get pregnant or prevent pregnancy, a healthy cycle will help you to achieve your goals. A healthy cycle is part of healthy, physical and emotional wellbeing. It is part of healthy hormone communication in your body. We will talk about what that looks like and how to identify when things aren't working exactly the way that they should. Your body gives you the roadmap, but unfortunately we just haven't been taught how to read the language. It's desperately trying to communicate to us. When I work with my clients, I see their flags because their body is waving them loud and proud, asking for help, and I am really big on making sure to teach them the language that their body is using to communicate with them. Knowledge is power, and I want you to be the most empowered version of yourself that you possibly can be. Your body doesn't have to be your adversary, and for so many women, that's the case. I invite you to come along on this journey with me. I hope you get mad at the current system with me. I am angry at how women's voices are being muted by our current model. I'm even angrier at how race magnifies this problem. We deserve better. We do. We deserve better. Together with information and empowerment. I truly believe that if enough of us demand a change and hold our practitioners accountable for that change that slowly the tide will turn. through this show. I deeply hope that you walk away from these episodes feeling empowered, that you have choices, feeling validated, that your intuition is brilliant and you aren't quote unquote crazy. And if there is something off, you know what? It's telling you how to interpret this language that your body. To communicate with you and how to advocate for yourself to get the support that you need. I hope that this gives you the tools to walk into your next appointment with your doctor and advocate for yourself. Thank you so much for joining me, and I'm excited to get started on this journey with you. thank you for joining me for another episode of Reproductive Rebel Reproductive. Rebel is recorded by certified per steam hydrotherapist, herbalist, sound healer, and Chinese nutritional therapist, Adrian IRI of Moon Essence L L c. If you are interested in setting up an appointment with Adrian for one-on-one support, ordering from our store or checking out our course offerings, visit our website at Moon essence dot. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to get insider information on upcoming events and offerings. Join the conversation like us and follow Moon Essence me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Your voices make this program possible. Thank you all for your continued support.