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This is a guest post from Randine Lewis, MSOM, Ph.D., L.Ac., FABORM, a Speaker at Fertility Planit Show 2013. Dr. Lewis' approach combines Western medical knowledge, Chinese medicine and natural therapies. Her primary message is one of empowerment - discovering and maximizing your inherent fertility. Dr. Lewis utilizes multiple experiential modalities to bring you to an inner recognition of the source of your fertility. While some have considered her approach radical, it yields powerful results in otherwise intractable cases. Her retreat work has been featured on Good Morning America, The Today Show, The Wall Street Journal, among others.

Wouldn’t you agree that the coming of a child is a miracle?

Wouldn’t you also agree that you cannot force a miracle?

And yet, haven’t you tried? In fact, haven’t you tried multiple times – over and over again to force this hoped for miracle into existence?

Wouldn’t you agree that what you want most right now is hope?

If there was a spark of assurance that your miracle would come, you could be at peace. Yet, because somewhere inside you don’t believe it will come unless you try to force this miracle into existence, you are not at peace.

I’ll bet right now your system is coursing with stress hormones caused by unmet expectations, fueled my fear. Who can I see next? Who can offer me the next sliver of hope? The cycle of hope and despair make the infertility journey almost unbearable.

Here are a few radical notions that few want to hear:

1. You cannot force your fertility.
2. Nobody else can.
3. Hope is not required.
4. Your desire will not help you conceive.
5. There is no recipe for life.

Hope feels good. So does desire. We are biologically hooked up to move toward that which we think will make us happy. We thrust ourselves toward the object of our desires with hope and a great deal of effort. You can look back over your entire life and find this to be true: Your first “A” on a school exam; the first time you won a ballgame; a degree; a profession; a boyfriend; a car; a house… the objects of desire were fueled by hope and effort.  You may have even overcome great odds to achieve these goals.

Let’s look at what was going on biochemically during these achievements: Your endocrine system responded to the hopeful desire by diverting blood flow away from your reproductive organs. Beneath the hope was fear that you would not achieve your desired result. This fear activated the adrenal glands which flooded your bloodstream with norepinephrine and cortisol. And it felt good! You felt charged and strong, as you powered toward your goal. You became your own inner cheerleader. “You can do it; if only you try hard enough!” Your cells, meanwhile, down regulated the reproductive hormone receptors, so, God forbid, you wouldn’t became pregnant while you were in pursuit!

And now you try to achieve a baby in the same way – fueled by hope and desire, running away from the fear of non-achievement. You find the top-notch reproductive clinic. You eat right.  You try acupuncture and herbs. Maybe you go to yoga and meditate; your body alternates between stress and relaxation like a yo-yo. And it wears on your system because it isn’t good for you.

Let’s try a little exercise here.

Let your mind tell your right hand to make a fist and hold it.

Done. Easy.

Let your mind tell your toes to wiggle.

Done. Easy.

Tell your mind to slow down your breath, and muster up a state of hope.

It may take a moment longer, but… Done. Easy.

Now let your mind tell your ovaries to produce a healthy follicle, release it on time, have it be fertilized, and implant into your receptive uterus.

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You can’t do the last one. Why? Because you cannot force your fertility like you can force a state of hopeful expectation or wiggle your toes. Your fertility operates via the opposite laws of achieving worldly desires. It operates via the laws of receptivity; not of activity.  Bringing the miracle into existence requires your effort to move out of the way. The messages that reach your follicles come from the subconscious response to your environment.

Look at nature. You don’t see squirrels hoping for offspring. These little creatures, like the rest of the mammalian world, don’t reproduce so well when they are in a state of stress, even when their activity is slowed down. Life comes through when conditions are right and when it is allowed, hope and desire aside. Look at animals in confinement. They have all the time in the world to quiet their minds and eat right, but a Bengal tiger in the zoo cannot bring forth life no matter how the environment is altered. Nature knows better.   How many stories have you heard of those who “gave up” and then became pregnant? This isn’t a cruel joke that nature plays; it brings forth a powerful example of what happens when you let go of the pursuit, relinquishing desire and hope. Although many of us try to avoid this state with all of our might, it reveals a potent truth regarding the wisdom of our physiology. While PhDs and worldly successes may not come to crack addicts living on the street, babies do.

I do not mean to squash hope or desire. Yet when they become “practices,” your body-mind tries to perfect them, and actually produces more stress chemicals, reducing the cells’ hormonal receptivity.

Hope is on the spectrum of and contains its opposite – fear. If there is hope, there is fear of no hope. And the further we try to resist the fear of no hope, the more powerful its stressful tug.

There is a force more powerful than hope. It comes from the source of Life itself; you carry it within you. You have access to it at all times. The Tao Te Ching calls it the “Mysterious Feminine” – the origin of creation.

The valley spirit never dies.

It is called the Mysterious Feminine – the doorway through which heaven and earth arise, in the depths of the womb of creation.

Continuous, empty and inexhaustible;

Always on the brink of existence;

You can draw upon it as you will, but it cannot be forced.

Life longs to come forth when you abide the laws of creation, which cannot be forced. So how do we draw upon its force? Find it within. While I use a retreat process to utilize and magnify this force within you, you don’t need any process to find it. It is found in the inner spaciousness of your body’s wisdom. It is found in the circumstances of your life, as it is, right now. When you are in harmony with nature, life is allowed to come through. The way cannot be forced.  Live as if you are a miracle. Live as if you contained the source of life within. Live as if the only directive comes from the wisdom of your own heart.  Give up your practices if you don’t love them; if they don’t make you feel charged and alive.

And you won’t need hope. You won’t need desire. You won’t need diets, methods, doctors or practices to take you “there.” It is right here, within you. Find the miracle within, and live it. Love your own life first before you invite in another. Your future child does not need your hope or desire. It needs you to find the miracle of you, as you are. No hope required.

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