Fertility is complex. There is a lot to consider if you are in your mid to late 30’s / early 40’s and would like to have kids that share your biology.
The good news is that there are a lot of options to consider to support female fertility, especially if you open up to the wisdom of complementary medicine.
Naturopath and Medical Herbalist Inna Duckworth talks us through the full range of options available to understand and support your fertility, encompassing truly incredible advances in conventional medicine and then stretches far beyond, taking us back through 5,000 years of Chinese medicine and millennia of observational science. We explore the power of connecting with the healing spirit of plants and to the ancient practice of energetic healing.
Join us in this exciting and empowering discussion on finding love and creating family a bit later on in life. You’ll leave inspired, as I did.
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Listen in as we discuss…
Fertility for women 38+
How to prepare your body, heart, mind and soul for pregnancy – even if you’re still single or in early stage relationship
Can you get pregnant if you’re perimenopausal
The phases of perimenopause and how they relate to fertility
What you can do to optimize your chances for pregnancy (natural birth + IVF)
What to consider in a partner when you’re dating in your late 30’s early 40’s and want a family
Sperm health and male fertility
The magic of science and the importance of energy work in conception
What a holistic approach to fertility offers us as multidimensional beings
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inna.herbalist@gmail.com
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Ep. 5 Holistic fertility testing for women 38+ with Inna Duckworth, Naturopath and Medical Herbalist
[00:00:00] Andrea: Welcome to Lush Love, the podcast. I'm your host, Andrea Balboni. And as a sex love and relationships coach, it's my mission to help you experience modern day love. That feels lush in all ways. I'm here today with Inna Duckworth founder of Women's Health Herbalist. She's a Naturopath and Medical Herbalist based in west Sussex and she specializes in natural preconception care to support healthy pregnancy.
[00:00:30] She's a fully qualified medical herbalist holds an MSC in herbal medicine and is a a member of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists in the UK. She makes natural prescriptions. So she, so she prescribes as well as creating bespoke herbal blends. I'm so excited to hear about this and Tintures to support women's bodies as they prepare for conception and also for shifting into perimenopause .
[00:00:58] Thank you so much for joining us today Inna.
[00:01:02] Inna: And thank you for being invited. It's exciting. I think the topics that you're bringing up about experiencing the joys and pleasures in our body is so important these days. And we have just started opening this kind of subject if you like. Just I have attended a concert by peaches, which is she's celebrating her 20 years anniversary of the, of her album teaches by peaches.
[00:01:27] And she's 55. I was amazed by the honesty and the sincerity and integrity of a person delivering the message about the joys of sexual life and the pleasures and how we have right. For those pleasures. So this kind of sets, sets a theme for this interview because I was just thinking about it, like. How much, how many of us can express themselves that well, you know, and I'm really appreciating that there is a resource like yours and your help to women who wanted to actually acknowledge that they want to do that.
[00:02:05] My journey there is sort of, yes, my primary work at the moment in here in West Sussex is about conception, preconception care for women over 35, 38. And this journey here came through journey through perimenopause. I started working with perimenopause before the hype, before anyone knew what perimenopause was.
[00:02:26] And it was, there was a couple of books written like by some visionaries, like 10, 15 years ago, like the like classical perimenopause, storm, our estrogen storm and people were just dipping into that and thought what's happened was in my practice. I saw women. 38 ish. I'm I'm seeing this number because it's just over 35 because at 35, you don't feel that yet.
[00:02:50] But somehow closer to forties, there is this little shift and they had three symptoms. They had the symptom of bloating. They had symptom of fatigue and insomnia, and I started ticking. What was that? And I found out that this was indeed the beginning of perimenopause. Now menopause is a technical term, which.
[00:03:13] Technically medically is one day in your life because it's a year after your period has stopped and that's your menopause and everything. And after that is post menopause and perimenopause is kind of now being used by various practitioners and by various scholars differently. However uh, it is a period between 10 to 15 years before the period stops and it is divided into roughly three, four kind of subsections, but it's all a little bit like slightly kind of scholarly if you like.
[00:03:47] But what is to understand about that? That it. The changes. What happened to these women? They were slightly scared because I'm 38. It's not menopause, is it? No it isn't. And how do I, so they were like, I've got these changes. I don't know what's happening. I know that these changes are systemic because I experienced these symptoms like day in, day out and on a cyclical basis as well.
[00:04:14] And so, but they were like, is it menopause? Is it, it, I'm just, I'm under 40. And then I was digging into that and I've discovered all this kind of understanding. I've worked out the understanding what it is, and I did some studies and some more training and all of that. So the first phase of perimenopause, which is sort of the most sort of interesting probably for your audience is when the hormones can still be balanced.
[00:04:40] You know, because for me, the shift in perimenopause happens at some point when. Women understand that's it, it is going to menopause. So the is going that my period will stop. So that's a difference. There is a massive, like this roller across to storm of perimenopause when everything's changing and you can balance it. And then there is a point where the period is going, it's coming rarer. And the changes are there. It's, I think it's sort of over 50 ish depends where you are depends on your genomics and on your genetics, genomics, lifestyle, nutrition, and everything.
[00:05:13] So, and then you understand, okay, I need to do something about my estrogen support. So the first phase is roughly called estrogen dominance and that what was missing from understanding because everyone expected that, oh, menopause is my estrogen is going. And I need to support my estrogen with various things like including HRT.
[00:05:34] Now there is a massive understanding that there is a period where the, all the hormones are a little bit up and down. And the key feature for that period is so called anovulatory cycles. So we lose our ovulation. For age stress you name it, pollutions recent pandemics. We just lose our ovulation.
[00:05:56] And when we lose our ovulation, we lose the most kind of the God fairy hormone. The progesterone, which keeps us calm, not everyone because there are some genetics variations where progesterone is kind of making people a little bit more agitated and a little bit like teary. So, but that's everything that's to be found out like individual on individual basis.
[00:06:19] So we are losing this hormone on this progesterone hormone and everyone else just going, havoc, like up and down, and it is important to manage that. Why am I doing this work? Well, when I was meeting this woman, these women, I was thinking. , this was like, they've achieved something in their career, you know, or they've arrived somewhere where they wanted, and this should be like an orgasm of their life.
[00:06:44] You know, the bright time they, they, ah, and it doesn't happen. It just does not happen for many because of this kind of changes. Nobody warned about them. Nobody told about them and it's still manageable. It it's possible to manage that. But the key probably thing is to start with understanding. What is happening.
[00:07:04] Thank you so much for that. That's already so much clarification and really, really helpful in understanding what's happening when it's happening, how it's happening and we'll get even more into it.
[00:07:15] My first question is for women who have achieved a lot in their lives around 35, around 38, even even moving into their forties, they've done loads with their career. Maybe they have a really thriving light social life. They've got a wonderful really rich life in that way, but they haven't yet found the right partner or they haven't found the person who feels right for them to start a family with.
[00:07:41] At what point, if you're beginning to feel like, oh, I'm becoming some of the symptoms that you described, oh, this starting to happen. Does that mean it's off the table for me? I've gotta just look at other things. Look at other options or shift that shift or shift that completely.
[00:07:57] Yeah. That's a big topic.
[00:07:58] Really big. I think that anyone who is thinking about that. should maybe have a coaching session or just if they're capable to do it by themselves, just to sit down and write down, how do I envisage that?
[00:08:12] What am I ready for? Am I ready to have a, like a child with a, like a donor sperm? Okay. Am I ready to kind of, what am I ready here for? And so I think that this kind of honesty about do I really want to do I really want to commit to that, that this kind of thing I think will like liberate you quite a lot because I met quite quite a few women who are saying. I chose not to have it. Not to have children. Okay.
[00:08:40] However, if you want to have a child there's two large consideration consideration. Number one, stay as healthy as possible. Okay. If you want to have a child and you don't have a right partner for you now I think the best thing to do is do a proper MOT health mot. Like I would go with my, my combination of work with perimenopause women is a special hormonal desk called Dutch test. And in combination with a special Nutrigenomics test showing where are you? And then I would also do like a, a ovarian reserve test that can be done as a private for your GP. And have you sit down and I understand where you are. Okay. What is your personal situation?
[00:09:22] Health wise. And that will let you inform you, what kind of reserve have you got there? And for example, if you've got some condition behind it it's worth looking into resolving this condition or managing this condition or working to improve this condition. And that's like one kind of story around it.
[00:09:40] The other, the other side of the story is considered freezing eggs. And don't wait with that because the younger you are the healthier eggs you will freeze My opinion that freezing eggs should be approached similarly because you, like, you go for an MOT health MOT, we look at everything where you are.
[00:09:59] We do, if you're considering freezing eggs, I would also do a special test called vaginal Ecologics test. So we do hormonal test. We look at where your hormones are, what's your ovarian reserve. We do the vaginal test and we do a Nutri genomic test. If you have ever done like an engine test for like a really good car, and they test you in the system and they show you all this amazing reports and to show you so the science around health is at that level, you can get a really good insight where you are and how your body might respond to this and that and the other.
[00:10:36] And then based on that, you would take some prenatal supplements for three to six months. And like some other supplements depends where you are, where you need to be. Some herbs maybe depend, like it's very individual. And then at the peak of your health, your harvesting eggs and as many as possible, really, because you might want to have two children for some women.
[00:10:56] This is so liberating to know because with frozen eggs, you can go for IVF later. Of course, like your partner will need to work on this sperm quality as well, and you will still need to kind of do a bit more work on being able to to have a successful implantation and all of that.
[00:11:12] But. That that's really liberating in a sense that you've got, you've kind of have got this chance yet, and you don't have to just like kind of brush with a partner right now. The, the other thing about looking for a partner, I think, again, it's about so much honesty, what kind of partner you need, what kind of partner you want?
[00:11:31] What are the expectations? You believe like half of your life, 40 years at your own pace, there is probably some challenges in finding somebody who will co-join your pace. So maybe having a openness about that and having a co parenting relationships, Where you both chose to have a child, but you don't necessarily live together or you spend weekends together.
[00:11:56] This kind of authenticity of your situation should be like cornerstone, you know, and don't, don't look at other people what they have or don't have, or what, what they do. And they don't do. It's like, it's your life? By 40 women were left with no vision. Some of them followed their mother's fathers, you name it, social expectations. They go to this great career and, and what's next, you know and then somebody never had a chance to really look at what they wanted to do, and this is a time I, I think this, this is a liberating time.
[00:12:30] I met my husband online when I was 33, we met when I was 33. And I tell you that online dating wasn't. Initially, I was very enthusiastic about online dating and then I started like seeing, okay, it's not kind of what I want.
[00:12:46] And like I had 37 encounters, I said 37 visits, like meeting ups, you know, and as time progressed I started using this kind of tool as an exploratory tool. And I would have a chat. I would ask them what, what attracted you? And be honest, I say, look, it doesn't seem like we've got the chemistry, let's have a chat, you know, let's just have an open chat. What attracted you in my profile? I'll tell them what attracted me in their profile.
[00:13:15] And I learned so much and I had such a great laugh through this most of these meetings because it kind of. It gave me so much confidence, you know, about what is, what they liked about me, what they didn't like about me. I invite you to kind of stop stressing about it and kind of start exploring.
[00:13:33] I remember one of my, when I still worked in marketing, one of my super big bosses and she's a like extremely successful woman, woman with a family career and everything, you would look at her like as one of these Ted talk people, you know, like, and I remember one of the conferences, she said, one thing that find your place in the world, find your place.
[00:13:56] And then the world will start kind of, kind of molding around you if you like, because if you are in a right place for yourself, then you will be, you will be, you have a chance to find the right partner.
[00:14:08] Just like what is the most important thing about your person with you? Okay. When we met with my husband, I tried to change his outfits, like change his wardrobe. He absolutely hated it. And I'm glad I stopped at the first attempt. And over time I've learned to appreciate his 20 year old t-shirts.
[00:14:29] I wouldn't want him to choose dresses for me either. That is example where our expectations and real people are maybe different. And I think the more honest you, what, what exactly you want from this, this situation, this encounter, this relations is the closer you will get to really getting where you want to be now.
[00:14:50] Andrea: Thank you so much for sharing that. I'd loved hearing your story about how you met your husband and all the things that you learned along the way. And it is key that that becomes a playground. That dating becomes a way of getting to know yourself more.
[00:15:06] And if we shift our mindset from, and it's a tough one, because we have a, a really strong desire and some of us have had that strong desire for a long time when it's just not happening, can get really frustrating. Especially after date 250,000, it feels like it can be tough to get back into that space of, okay, this is a place where I get to explore.
[00:15:29] See what I like, see what works for me. See Who works for me in what way? And so staying in that place of play really sounds like it was key for you. Yes. And it's something that I focus on with my clients too, is coming back to themselves. What do they really want? How do they want to live their lives beginning to really embody that and to start to live from that place so that when someone waltz is in, they, they glide right into, into that space that you've created in your life for them.
[00:16:01] But it's a life that you're already living in a way that you love to live it. So that match is easy to understand. A lot of women will say, I'm not sure. I don't know if it's right or not. Right. And it's, well, if you're already living in a way where you as you would. When you had someone, then it's easier to understand, okay.
[00:16:17] Is this feeling like right fit? Or is there actually just not, are we in different, in different spaces? And I also like as well, how you encourage people to think or women to think about the different ways that they could live a relationship, different styles of relating co-parenting in a way that looks different from what society and culture may say you should have or is right.
[00:16:40] So really finding what's right for you, what your desires are and living from there. It's key. So key. So thank you for sharing all of that wisdom.
[00:16:50] I had I'm gonna cycle all the way back to when you described the testing that you do with women to understand to understand where they sit in relation to how I don't know exactly the, the terms that you'd use, but basically it's okay.
[00:17:07] Is my body still going to be ready to carry life? Am I going to be able to get pregnant? And so what I would love to understand is how is the work that you do with a Dutch test and other and other, ways of working different from say, conventional medicine, the NHS, or going to a medical doctor, where is the difference and why did you choose to work this way rather than that way?
[00:17:33] Inna: I'm not trained as a medical doctor. Okay. I, and at some point I was lamenting that I wasn't, because I thinking God, I should have gone to medical school really. But then I decided then I've understood how the system works and how things work. And I understood that no, I'm in my place where the place is complementary
[00:17:53] so the work that would be done by a medical doctor is different. They will be looking for pathologies and I'm looking for imbalances and imbalances, like a, a light live ahead of a pathology. And also the solutions, many solutions from the Orthodox medicine will be to medicate, to eradicate the disease.
[00:18:19] Okay. We are not operating in the disease sphere. However, if somebody's diagnosed with endometriosis, for example, we'll do all the same tests. We will look into the thyroid health, which is the test from a GP. We will look at the full blood test the mineral status. There are other tests that can be done that way, which is working with a brilliant lab called gen Genova diagnostics. Probably any health professional will be listening to this will recognize it.
[00:18:46] And they have been they have developed a, a test called metabolomics, which is, it's like literally a Porsche. In testing. I mean, I dunno, Porsche PORs, a good car. I dunno, maybe Tesla or something. I'm, I'm comparing to the cars because it's easy to understand that it's a complex mechanism and you need a complex, complex tool to evaluate its health.
[00:19:07] Not, not that I'm mechanize mechanizing, the human body being, no, I I am working with like mind, body and spirit, if you like, and I'm trained that way through my taoist practice. But this, this is something like where it's almost like bordering the miraculous how much information we can get. And again, the key difference is doctors will, will look for pathologists and we will look for imbalances
[00:19:32] The other difference is that like nutritional imbalances are not wildly re widely recognized by the conventional medicine. Unfortunately. Now, for example, I've just attended a fertility show in London. And some of the IVF clinic and some of the IVF doctors were very understanding of how this will be as a nutritional imbalance will affect the egg health, or will affect the general ability to carry the pregnancy.
[00:20:00] And some, some people are very dismissive, like that's just life, you know, that's, I think that the, probably the beautiful times that people can choose that they can consider this, but they can also consider this massive amount of work at the moment in conception case down around microbiome health.
[00:20:19] Which is to do with actually oral health and health gut health and specific microbiome health. Because for example, oral hygiene, there are it's, there are several strains of bacteria that are found in our oral cavity that are linked with miscarriages, for example, okay. In my work as a conception care, miscarriage is the worst.
[00:20:40] If somebody cannot get pregnant, well, we've done everything. At least you will know that we have done everything you could. For example, I had a patient who said that they had two miscarriage.
[00:20:53] They had a natural birth, they had two miscarriages. And when we discussed what is possible, what, what are the next steps she was saying like, oh, you've just opened the universe to me. I did not know that all these steps are possible to improve my chances to have a healthy baby.
[00:21:11] And like, I just talking to her, this is first time, literally I understood that this information is not out there. You know, that it's still kind of, sort of circulating in our neuropathic herbals, nutritional kind of functional medicine world. And yes, the microbiome is a huge topic and it's actually relevant for sort of our topic of sex and sex pleasures.
[00:21:32] And if you like because there are a lot of microbiome, like intimate microbiome, there is a lot of exchange between partners. It's not a sexually transmitted disease, please don't get it wrong. It's exchange of microbiome. So it is very important to know what your partner, what you're exchanging, you know, because some of the strains of bacteria, they happen that way, that they're harmless in women.
[00:21:58] But they affect quality of sperm. And that leads to miscarriages. And so stuff like that, it's all kind of these little things that we, we are looking at when we're working in conception care. Mm.
[00:22:10] Andrea: So nutritional imbalance and micro and the microbiome. Can you just for those of us who aren't schools in science, what is microbiome?
[00:22:21] Inna: Microbiome is the kind of combination of bacteria? Well, actually you would say bacteria and fungi and some viruses that inhabit our body. And actually it used to be that we had a gut microbiome and everyone understood the gut microbiome. And that's why probiotics are sold, like candies and stuff like that.
[00:22:41] And the first thing is, oh, I think I need some probiotics, but this, this microbiome leaves this kind of micro. Colony. If you like the, the, we, we are a symbiotic creature as a human we're a symbiotic creature. We carry about two kg of this other species on mass. And it's about a glass of fungi, 200 grams of fungi, about couple of glasses of viruses.
[00:23:07] And about couple of kg of this bacteria, they live on every mucus membrane in the body. Okay. They live on our lungs, they live on all the oral cavity, nasal cavity, eyes.
[00:23:21] And the balance of this microbiome is kind of keto health.
[00:23:25] So for your healthy sexual life, the best thing you can do is check the, your vaginal microbiome. So knowing your what's going on there is so helpful before you even start like.
[00:23:38] For having healthy sex. And for like before you go the partners also for everything pretty much.
[00:23:44] Andrea: Yeah. Okay, great. Yeah. So you're, so the work that you do is helping people to understand what their microbiome looks like, how it's, how it is. And if there are in a space of preconception or wanting to have a, have a kid, then you help them to balance that.
[00:24:03] Inna: Is that the right? My work is like a holistic conception care. But if you just separate the scientific part of the work will be three parts. One is definitely microbiome work. Second part would be hormonal work, which can be either done partially through your healthcare provider, like the GP or partially Dutch test. And then third part would be Nutri genomics, which is understanding how your genes are.
[00:24:28] It does take time. I really urge women to understand that this work takes time. First, the follicle starts, maturing follicle starts takes three months for a follicle to mature, sort of the, we are born with all the pre follicles we will ever have.
[00:24:46] And they are built when our mother has been in ours. Granny's tummy. Okay. And, but they're just like presales, because it's like an opportunity if you like, and then they start maturing and it takes three months to mature. So the cycle you've got today is something that ha reflects something that happened to you three months ago.
[00:25:07] So sometimes you think, why do I have this heavy cycle now way so painful this time come back three months. And if you were stressed or unwell or something else happened, that's a reflection of it now. So any conception work is this magic number of three. Same for sperm. Sperm are matures for about a hundred days, same sort of window.
[00:25:29] So if something has been kind of identified as an traditional gap and stuff, you need to prebuilt it. So that in three months time, you've got this egg starting mature or sperm starting. And then in three months you start conception. So normally I say, take a break. You are not making a baby in the next couple of months.
[00:25:47] Definitely not because we want to find out what's going on. And then you are not making a baby. You're just having fun because you are building up that eggs and this sperm that should be like healthy and, you know, as healthy as possible to start doing it. So it's like again, this is something coming back to your very first question of somebody's in there, like sort of 40 starting getting to forties, give yourself time.
[00:26:11] Normally I say set out this year for this work. I mean, I don't mean give up your job or don't give up your anything. It's just set it out as a priority. Like we are enjoying ourselves, we're enjoying our life. We're looking out, looking after our health and trying to see where it gets us. There was one thing I wanted to say.
[00:26:33] I've been listening to a very kind of, you know, very inspiring and quite spiritual person. Rebecca Campbell, she does a lot of work in like female spirituality. And she said that sh in the very beginning of her spiritual work, she gave you, she made a commitment. That was her dream, that she would have flowers, fresh flowers every week she would buy fresh flowers.
[00:27:00] And she said that in the very, it's coming back to this year of pleasure, you know, year of pleasure before you have to get to your conception. And she says that she started buying flowers every week. Then she would like, look at them, connect with them, be happy that she did it. That was her little achievement.
[00:27:18] And despite that, she said at that moment it was expensive, but she still did it. And through that, she was getting more creativity, more, whatever it was more flow. And that led to her new kind of development into her books and everything. And I was thinking, that's exactly the ritual. That's your mascot.
[00:27:35] Andrea: Yeah. So it sounds like beautiful connection with what feels like flow, what feels like the feminine
[00:27:43] so if one, one part of the work is science, the other part might be what might that other part be that you work with
[00:27:49] Inna: well, the other part is I'm trained into a modality that is called plant spirit medicine, which I have explored and kind of renamed in a sense for people to explain what that is.
[00:28:01] It's an ancient taoist framework, which is called five element theory applied through the energies of plants. And I've learned to do this in two ways. One is here at the clinic it's like a healing session, the other one is I'm offering an online, energetic coaching sessions, where we look at the imbalances through this five element prism
[00:28:25] it is one of the maybe oldest recorded forms of medicine, if you like. And I don't want to denigrate anyone else, but it's like 5,000 years old and they have had records of what has been happening and, this taoist work is a mixture of some spiritual mystics, getting some inspirations and also some massive amount of observation as well.
[00:28:50] Five element is a part of a sort of Chinese cosmology where the five elements fix the the space, you know, like you've got the you've got the north, the. South the west and the east. So we fixed this space. However Chinese described it in eight directions.
[00:29:07] We do that as well. We've got Southwest and you know, all that. So eight directions and five elements describes the flow of the energy. And as one of the scholars of this discipline Laurie de chart, she's very beautiful. Laurie de chart has got an audio book there as well.
[00:29:23] She said that this five element describes the whole cycle of carbon life and we are the carbon life. Carbon is the, the kind of backbone of the organic chemistry, if you like.
[00:29:35] And so it describes us like birth growth flowering having a fruit and then decay and death. And there's a lot of uh, poetry behind it. And a lot of It, it is literally the flow, if you like, and how is it relevant? So they've described, they're looking at this framework and everything kind of ties into this framework of five.
[00:29:57] So each season is linked with the prior, like with the prevalent energy and prevalent energy is linked with the, with the prevalent emotion in a person and this emotion all the emotions should be, I balanced if somebody's emotion is out of balance and this is this area of their body and area of their life is being kind of out of balance.
[00:30:18] And it needs to be looked at, for example a lot of women in perimenopause and it's sort of 40 plus 38 40. They all, a lot of women experience liver problems and gallbladder problems and ha and it also manifests in anger. And frustration. And of course, liver is considered and this system considered to be the prime architect and the gallbladder is a primary decision making.
[00:30:44] I'm coming back to the, the, this thing that I was talking about that who's making the decisions. How are you making the decisions about your life?
[00:30:54] Have you good vision for your life? And so many times it's all stumbling on the stones. The other thing would be loneliness. Loneliness is an element of fire. And if your fire is, if you, if you've got this beautiful fire in your heart and you've got no one to share it with, you know, that's it, we are, we are not meant to be lonely.
[00:31:15] We are meant to be part of the community.
[00:31:18] Andrea: So with a woman who comes into your office, you understand not just the science behind what's happening in her body, but also the spirit. So understanding what's happening, how she's feeling about her life, how she's feeling about where she's at, how she's feeling about having a child and working with that as well.
[00:31:36] So coaching her through to, I would guess to smooth out the areas that were smoothing out through the lens of the five
[00:31:43] Inna: I've learned over the years and my, my major qualification I've received in 2017. And over this time I've learned to meet people where they are. Some people like this spiritual side of work, it can be done in two forms.
[00:31:59] One is a coaching and one is a healing session. I can, I cannot combine the practical medical work with healing session. That will be two separate sessions. And so is coaching probably co part of coaching we discussed, like, for example when you fertility, client said, she wrote to me in the morning that, oh, you know what, the, the homework that she had was to consider she's craving sweets.
[00:32:22] Okay. And I said, okay, I want you to really look into the moments when you crave sweets. I want you to kind of write down, okay. I'm craving sweets. I feel that way about it. So, because I don't want to say, just cut out. Sugar cut out the sweets. I want her to understand, to connect with her cravings before we start saying, okay.
[00:32:43] So, because I, I want, and this is part of coaching and this, this is where the, the kind of mentally, like we've got the process that we are mentally aware of, but we've also got sort of unconscious processes.
[00:32:53] So at the moment, this client is at this stage where she's not ready to do the spiritual work. She she's not there yet. She's ready to start understanding. Where her cravings come from and when she's ready, if she wants to we'll do healing session, if she she's not ready, then, I'm leaving it to her. Like, yes, we will be working with we're already work with herbs. She's already changing diet. We're already having some vitamins and looking into that on the other and your, your partner will be tested for his sperm quality because that the male fertility is so overlooked, you know, and like, and also there's also stigma about it, because like, oh, if my, you know, I've got some problems with my sperms and, you know it kind of demasculinises men.
[00:33:39] So in her case, they, they didn't have the partner test ever tested ever. So it's kind of, again, it's humans at everything in the women's court. And uh, it's interesting the dynamics, some younger couples You would have a male partner really open to everything, you know, in some older couples you might have.
[00:33:59] Mm. You know, and it's again, it's it's okay. It, it, it is okay. But so this was like a little pun into that male fertility needs to be checked out as well. But again, coming back to the previous question, it's about starting where you are at you. You shouldn't be uncomfortable in any process with any health practitioner, coach health practitioner, energy work, you lead the narrative.
[00:34:23] You decide what you want to happen to you. You know, like you decide what's happening. You know, you need to know the options. Like we talk about options all the time.
[00:34:34] And with my, with my clients, with my patients, these are your options. You can do this, you can do this, you can do it all at once. You can do it stage in stages when you're ready. And it, it, I think this is super important not to, when I hear things like, oh, mighty people to be on X Y that that's kind of taking this authority away from people.
[00:34:56] Not that they shouldn't and the medical decisions, but you can question medical decisions. You should, you can know what's going on. You can know why they're making this decision. And just, you know, that that's take your power back. That's what I'm talking about here.
[00:35:13] Andrea: Yeah, there's an imbalance, I think, and we've given so much power away and stopped listening to our bodies and that's led to this disconnection as well.
[00:35:22] Mm-hmm so I love your, your view on that of giving people different options. And then they decide, and of course there is the medical practitioner will have their view based on their experience, their expertise, and then it's your body and what feels absolutely. That's going to support your health. And that's not just empowering, but it supports, it supports health.
[00:35:45] So I had one last question for you, what happens in a healing session
[00:35:51] Inna: in the healing session healing is it's like The actual work is like combination of energetic acupuncture reiki someone's lying on the couch for about 40 minutes to an hour.
[00:36:01] Depends. And then the basically being like hands on healing with some energies of plants happening. And so yeah, that, that's, that's what it is. And the, the energies of plants I've been working for with, well, I've qualified in this system in 2018, and then I had a year of supervised practice and I met a lot of like made connections with a lot of plants that way.
[00:36:24] And it's very beautiful. I remember this look, it's a very kind of, I remember this story when I spoke to a woman and Like a couple of days before I met this woman, I had a connection with a font energy, and it was all about orgasm. Like all, everything about orgasm, like fiery, fiery energy, like all of this, like joy, sex, joy, sex, like, wow.
[00:36:49] And the way it works, that you get really attuned to the energies, you kind of learn to meditate and you learn to listen and you learn to differentiate with the messages from your own kind of body and from what's happening. And also the training involves a lot of observation. You're looking at the color on their face. You're looking at the smell sound of their voice and the emotional imbalance they represent with.
[00:37:15] So literally you can talk about cinema books you name it horses, but at the same time, you are listening to which emotion is out of balance because it, the emotion manifest in a kind of combination of sound of their voice and the it kind of, so this work is take, takes at least two years to just learn to attune to this so that when a person comes to me, like the first thing I do is I listen to them and it's like, attunement.
[00:37:44] Which element is the, we call it the causative factor, the core element, which is out of balance. And you can think about it like a champagne, you know, like, you know, the wedding and champagne or her chocolate, the fountain where if you heat the right element. So the energy goes everywhere. The energy flows everywhere, and also system recognizes some major blocks in the system, like major operation, major trauma major something happened.
[00:38:11] Then the, the something gets blocked and we can move these blocks of energy through the body and people find it restorative, quite restorative. So with that woman, Somehow when I, I met this plant, I forgot. Well, I had this connection. I made this meditation with a plant.
[00:38:27] I recorded all that. I was so like, I've never experienced so much energy in one plant. And then when I met this moment, a woman for like a diagnostic session, I was looking at her and how is your, how's your sex life? How's your orgasms? And she gingerly kind of said that it's not something that to frequent, like happens frequently to her.
[00:38:50] And suddenly all this kind of energy of this plant was in my head. I forgot about them. I've completely because it's a busy life, you know, I forgot about it. And this is exactly how it works. You know, so I know when I was working with her that how fire was out of balance because all the, all, everything else was pointing out of the fire imbalance.
[00:39:09] And then when I heard this, I knew that the energy of that plant that she needs. So when we were doing the session, that that's the energy that was brought in to the session. That how works.
[00:39:20] Andrea: Well, thank you so much. Inna you're incredible. So what I've understood is you work with the whole person, hence being a holistic healer. Practitioner really beautiful, beautiful work. So all of the science that is there that we have, that you describe as <laugh> miraculous that we have so much, we can get so much information, but then also the very, very critical for me and key, key understanding and things to work with with someone, our energy, energy.
[00:39:49] Yeah, and what's happening energetically with them and how also they're thinking about things, how their mindset is where they're at in life. And so you're really working with all parts of a, a person with their physical body, with their heart, their emotions, with the energy and with their mind as well.
[00:40:08] And we are multidimensional beings. Yes. And so it makes perfect sense to me that we work in this way. And and yeah, it's powerful. It's powerful. It's beautiful. And I would send anyone to you. who is considering, considering. Wanting to have perhaps a child and getting there with their age, into their late thirties, early forties, when it feels like, okay, what are my options?
[00:40:39] What's actually here for me. And I really want to understand that in a very concrete, in real way and work with everything that's there. So so thank you for that. It's powerful work that you.
[00:40:50] Inna: Thank you very much for inviting me. If they, if somebody wanted, there is a perimenopause work, a ebook on my website.
[00:40:57] And I said that there will be 20% discount on initial consultation with me, anyone who says I came from this podcast. So that, you know, just to kind of thank you for inviting me here.
[00:41:08] Andrea: Thank you. Thank you so much. So is the best way for people to get in touch through your website or? Yes.
[00:41:14] Inna: You can find me on my website Inna Duckworth, or you can find me on Instagram.
[00:41:17] Andrea: Amazing. Okay. And everything will be in the show notes as well. Yeah. So definitely connect with Inna generous gifts and the generosity that she came here with. And yeah. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. It's been wonderful.