Helping Women Connect With and Love Their Bodies

Many women are disconnected from their bodies and look to the medical system for support, which is often siloed and doesn't consider at all aspects of what it means to be a woman, from the physical to the energetic and the spiritual.

In Episode 31 of The Intuitive Health Podcast, Dr Anthony spoke with Founder of Rooted Feminine Wellness, Michaela, about what regenerative care can look like for women. From womb healing and breast care, through to reproductive health; or just seeing and loving your body, there is an important movement gathering around women's health.

Check out our half-day womb healing retreat in Dublin on May 16, 2025. Through shamanic breathwork, womb healing and deep trauma release rituals, Dr Anthony Rafferty will facilitate a journey into the ancestral feminine to clear inherited pain, awaken intuition, and open the body to creation. 

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and share it on Apple or Spotify. Visit the Intuitive Health website to book a healing session.

Transcript

Welcome to the Intuitive Health podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Anthony Rafferty, medical doctor, PhD, Reiki, and shamanic intuitive healer. I'm here to bring you on a journey of holistic healing that explores the science of the physical body combined with mental and emotional well-being, energetic, and spiritual health. And I am beyond beyond beyond excited to have Michaela here from Rooted Feminine Wellness uh to have a chat about all Ping's traditional pelvic care for women. And Michaela, it's such a pleasure to have you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here with you. So Michaela and I have literally been chatting over Instagram for months trying to find a time that's suited. And I always believe in divine timing for when the messages need to come through. And everything has just like literally so easily come together for us to be able to connect today. So, I feel like the time is right to connect and talk about how we can hold women better in their healing, in their care, in tending to their wombs and their emotional well-being and all aspects of what this looks like. So, please, please, please tell me a little bit about um what you do. Michaela, thank you so much. Yeah, so happy to be here again. It's so beautiful to see you and just to be in the space and speaking to these women. So, I'm just really grateful. So, yeah, my name is Michaela. I am the founder of Rooted Feminine Wellness. I specialize in traditional women's care and I am really devoted to birthing a new care culture for women. I have experienced so much in my life that has led me to different ways of caring and the original way of caring before um invasive care was birthed and Yeah, I support women with many things from breast care to uterine health, reproductive support, sexual health, the whole thing, the whole shebang. So, yeah, I'm really happy to be sharing about my my work today and about these sessions that I offer and yeah, the the movement I'm trying to bring forward for a regenerative care setting for women. I just adore this. I love it. We're needing it so much more now in society. We'd lost touch with this. You know, we're putting ourselves into the hands of the medical system that can only help us in a certain um very siloed way and you know, we've lost touch with the communities that used to hold each other and the traditions and the ways that we used to connect with the land and um and with the body. We've become so disconnected to the body. And I would I'd love to just hear a little bit about your journey. You spoke a little bit about um um kind of what led you to the path and I'd love to hear a little bit about kind of how you found your way to doing this work before we get into the nitty-gritty of what the work is. Yeah. As many of us as people as women who end up on a specific path. It's usually informed through our own challenges, our own experiences of malpractice within the medical system, pain, disease in the body. I experienced a lot of disease in my womb. My mother experienced a lot of disease in her womb, disease in her breasts. Breast cancer runs in the family, so they say, issues with the womb, excruciating, fainting pain, periods, you know, and such a I seen in my lineage this mass disconnect that the women before me had from their bodies and their wombs. And yeah, through my own like I I felt hollow as a woman for so many years. just being disconnected. I just felt like, oh my gosh, I'm going and I'm sitting in these sterile rooms and there's these bright lights and I'm in a gown and my legs are in stirrups and I was just like, "No, this doesn't feel this doesn't feel right. This doesn't feel coherent. This doesn't feel like the full truth of what's possible for us as women to receive care." Because I never left feeling cared for. I left feeling terrified and peeing, you know, blood dripping from me, like, you know, some really awful things. that I know that so many women experience. I can almost guarantee that every single woman that listens to this has experienced some sort of invasive procedure or has been told, "Yeah, there's nothing we can do for your endometriosis. Oh, there's nothing we can do for your PCOS. This is just the way it is." And I didn't settle when they told me that. And I've always had an interest in culture. And from I was a really young girl, I've always been so interested in different cultures in the world. And so, It led me then to travel and I was just following intuitive nudges through and I I met my medicine woman um who I work with. She's a Peruvian woman and she's called Margaluna. She really introduced me to the womb in a different way. And I was like, "Holy f***, what are we doing in this the current paradigm in relationship to women's health, especially modern gynecological work? and she really showed me these traditional ways and I had no idea. Like I was like, "Oh my god, there's a whole thing. There's a whole care system alive in Peru, in Mexico, in Africa. There's there's there's global women tradition. There's global um care systems that exist for women's health. And I was just blown away with what I received from hands-on work with my breath. tests, hands-on work with my womb, hands in work, the way that a physio would work, but in a different way, a very different way. We would be together for hours. I would sit with her for hours, maybe I was six hours, she'd be working with my body. We'd have lunch and I was just like, I need to learn everything. I need to know everything. And she was the woman who introduced me. And then the the further teachings of the working with the body came from many different teachers. through Central and South America and I've worked with some amazing physios and people who have transferred from the medical system into a more wholewoman approach. So, it's a long story. Many things have happened as I'm sure you know yourself and yeah, it just really opened my eyes and I was like s*** like how can I integrate this into our western world? How can I show women that more is possible for their health and their womanhood? And today All these issues that I had with my womb just don't exist. Don't ex They're not like I have the most healthy radiant tissues. My cycles are so un beautiful. Like I enjoy them so much and I'm supporting other women to reach that same level of health to because I just believe in regeneration for all disease just like these ancient women, these ancient grandmothers believe as well. Oh my god, it's so powerful and I hope even just hearing that segment that women are empowered to go out and start seeking answers um to be able to go on a journey of autonomy. So obviously I like I work myself as an energetic wound healer which unsurprising to me I've ended up here because actually all through my marine biology days, my time as a researcher, it's all been to do do with reproduction, with the womb, with maternal health, um, and with embryo and fetal health. And I, it's just fascinated me ever since I was born. I have just loved it. But it's been amazing because actually, as I went on the journey, like I got back into medicine purely to do obstetrics and gynecology. That was the path that I wanted to follow. I was like, I need to be involved in reproductive health and supporting women. with their pregnancies and their births. And you know when when I finished medical school and just the awakening of energy and the whole other aspect of what I do, I was like, "Oh my god, actually this is quite limited what we can do in the medical system." And it was almost like I went through this period of grieving of letting go of this version of myself of how I viewed I would be helping and supporting ing. And when I finally let that go, of course, then I was gifted by my guides and the universe with with the energies that I work with today and how to go about doing that. And it's quite fascinating because the women that come to me now, it like I still use investigations and techniques from the medical practice to identify what the medical root cause might be, but that in of itself that to me medical what we'd suggest as a root cause. That's not actually the root cause. To me, it's much deeper than that. It goes into the mind, the emotion, the energy, the ancestral lineage. And if we really take a deep dive into your soul, it could be past life. You know, there is so much that is held within the womb space. And I just love this journey that that you're kind of um highlighting because to be honest with the more and more um that I see in in the practice here and the more investigations we run because women can't even access investigations for themselves at the moment but doing basic pelvic ultrasounds all of these things the amount of things that are being missed the amount of adenomiosis endometriosis polycystic ovaries it is literally it's almost like it's just exploded are you seeing more of that in your work or is it just what's your kind of thoughts Yeah. So many women are misdiagnosed for a first and then they're given these really scary diagnosises and they're giving absolutely no understanding of what that is, how that impacts them. They're not giving Yeah. like the holistic view like you're working with so many layers and they're not being like, "Okay, so here's a pathway that we can put you on to remediate this or to regenerate this." They're just like, "Here it is." And they're just slapping it on. And so many women in the last few years especially like there's a major uproar with all of these like inflammatory based pelvic diseases. Yes. Oh my god. Inflammation in all honesty inflammation is the one thing day in and day out like every day it's just going on a journey with inflammation with women. And I take a very deep dive into the go health because obviously It's the it's the window to inflammation because the link between the gut and the um and the immune system is so important, but it's so systemic, you know, and endometriosis, the endometriotic tissue causing inflammation like bodywide. How do you hold people with the inflammation journey? So, I look at the core stress patterns in their life because

yes,

inflammation is stress and I sit with a woman, we have tea and we just start to talk and she starts to speak to me about her mother and when you give a woman space you'll start to see where the the core the root of this is. Yeah, I started to get indometriosis when I was 14. Okay, what events happened around when you were like 13 or maybe even a little bit before that have informed this inflammatory response that your body's like trying to process and once we've met the core and she she's like oh she almost like figures it out herself. She's like oh my goodness oh that's where that started you know you don't even really need to say anything she just she knows you know she knows sometimes she'll come with the knowing as well like this relationship was really toxic it gave me I'm starting to get PCOS for like symptoms and I'm like okay stress um and then we meet that through yeah in anti-inflammatory dietary work with a mix of I work with a lot of aruveetic principles and yeah, stress management. And then also hands-on multi-day care sessions where a woman's on my table and we're working with the health and responsiveness of her tissues and how her uterine position, you know, how her digestive health, how her belly is feeling, how her digestive organs and viscera are. And we just take this really wide approach like, okay, how many things can we pull from here to give this woman a really unique treatment for this? And It takes a major life change and that's what women have to be prepared to do if they want to remediate the likes of endo. I see it. I've seen it so much. I post about it so much on my Instagram. So many women going back for scans. It's just not there after a year of like firm devotion to diet, to self, to stress, to nervous system, to body. But it is possible. And it's a big thing to say, but I've seen a lot of it. And it is possible. And yeah, there's many ways that we can work with them. I love this. Like it's so amazing because it even women who come to just even do the energetic womb healing with me and I send them out their protocols afterwards and I'm like this is a journey you are going on for 13 moon cycles. Like this is a year of dedicated energetic work where you will see shifts in your life but in the lives of the women in your lineage. You know this this isn't something to be taken lightly that you're just turning up for the couple of hours on on the plinth through the discussions that we have as like this is a huge energetic commitment, you know, and I just love that you're talking about this kind of dedication to change, you know, with the with the women and the couples who come through. I even I had the most beautiful conversation um with a couple today. They came in for some blood testing um and it was just so beautiful in the space of even 15 minutes the connection that we had was just so gorgeous for just for some vulnerability and space you know and um we were just just speaking into the journey that they're on with their fertility but I was saying to them the changes that you will make when we are working together these are lifelong like sustainable changes so that when you go on and do have your baby and you will be healthy and connected to the body to actually raise this gorgeous child for the long haul. It's not just about the preconception period, you know, and I love what you were saying about the intuition. I this just I I just love it so much because this is one thing that women have in spades and I feel like it's been squashed out of them through their through their life experiences, through societal cultural experiences, all of these things. It's disconnection from their intuition, from their gut feeling. And like you say, when you give a beautiful lady an hour to sit and talk about their cycle and everything, it's almost like they're going, "Oh, actually, that's where the problem is." And I'm like, "Yes, you've identified it yourself. I'm just holding space for you to to get to that conclusion." Yeah. Literally, they know. And like you said, we've been so disconnected and severed from our body through hh you want to say I don't like the the P word but like colonialism and these patriarchal forms of pushing and disconnecting us both women and men from our sexuality our wombs our bodies our our wisdom as humans that our ancestors knew to be that they were connected to the land the plants you know the cycles the rhythms and all of this and we've been literally it has been like beaten out of us you know historically like it has been so It can feel really scary for a woman to own her truth of what she's experiencing. And a lot of women, they aren't listened to in the medical system. They're like, "I have this issue. I know that it's this." And they're like, "No, it's this." It's happened to me so many times. Just last week, I was going in to get something checked with my kidneys and I was told that it was, "Oh, it's just a UTI." And then turns out it was a kidney stone. Do you know what I mean? And like it's like, you know, know it's we know and women coming back to their wombs and their bodies really supports them to embody that knowing of the wisdom that we have as people and how we've just lost that so much through our modern world. Do you know I heard the most beautiful thing this week and it it's just speaking to me. It's just coming through now again as you're speaking into that because I think we with how society has gone We live in an era now where we just are overloaded with information and knowledge. And this this kind of phrase that I heard this week, it was just so beautiful because it was like, you know, we need to transition from knowledge back to wisdom because they're both so different. Like we can pursue all of the information and all of the knowledge intellectually speaking, but actually when we sit into the w wisdom of our own knowing, the wisdom of the beautiful and amazing connection to the land around us, mother nature will create space for us to actually receive wisdom, you know, and when we sit into the wisdom, that is where the power lies. But because we've kind of developed all these strategies that keep us super busy and in thatformational grabbing space where we just constantly look for new knowledge, we lose touch with the wisdom within us. Do you reckon? Like people can have a lot of knowledge but we won't receive anything from them speaking because there's this disconnect from the wisdom that they feel in their embodied sense of who they are. Like people can give checkboards and clipboards and recite off information and lots of knowledge but wisdom is what invokes like remembrance within us. And yeah that's what I really admire about you like you have this transmission of of wisdom you know and You can feel that. And I know that your women that work with you can feel that as well. I'm sure they just think you're bloody magical. Thank you so much. I'm getting my spirit tingles. All my tingles going down my body. That's usually the downloads of information of Oh my god, we're we're vibing on the same level here because I'm literally sitting here thinking the same because I've been I I have some absolutely gorgeous friends and um clients that have been in to see And you know, one of them I I just love her. Uh, and she's been on a journey with trying to actually transform access to nutritional foods and what actually nutrition and gut health looks like and even through the outdated advice we give in the medical system really around nutrition and actually our disconnection from fiber richch foods and the impact that actually whole foods can have on the body. Literally, it's like medicine and She contacted me. She was the one who actually pointed me in your way. She was like, "You need to connect with this absolutely magical soul that I just met. She was like, "Oh my god, the wisdom just exudes from her." You know, and she didn't go into much detail about the actual session. She was like, "You need to actually just talk to her." Uh, and to kind of um to kind of hear about how she holds these women. And I was like, "Okay." Like, and that was just the first person there. has been many let me tell you. Um so I would love I would love to know just for people listening in with regard to you mentioned some Ayurvedic um herbs or even just tinctures or are there essences from the land from nature? Are there herbs that you can access for women they can go out and uh get to start to start supporting their womb and their breast tissue their body?

Yeah. A really really beautiful one that is super abundant right now for lymphatic and yeah breast tissue health for their lymphatic system is cleavers sticky willies you probably remember them sticking them on people's jumpers at school or you know sitting on the grass and there's loads stuck to your ass so they are amazing for the lymphatic system you just get a jar of water well water if you like if you want to even go to say St. Bridget's well or some beautiful source here in Ireland we have such an abundance of beautiful sacred water here And then pick some cleavers, put them in, leave it for a few hours and then drink the cleaver water is amazing for lymphatic health for uterus like simple herb like red raspberry leaf like I cannot suggest any like this is the core like uterine tonic like tones supports your cycle. I know like women who are like can you just give me some re like you know any resource I'm like red raspberry leaf tea go and drink it twice a day see what happens over a few months and it's amazing. It's such a it's it's just like a go-to OG plant. Um yeah, they would be my two for uterus and like lymphatic. And then of course castor oil and just lathering yourself in castor oil like it's be running around like a a snail covered in it. Yes. Oh my god, I love this because I I uh obviously that's something I recommend for all of my clients on a journey. with their womb is their castor oil packs. Some of them come in to me and they're like, "The place is destroyed." And I was like, "You have to get your castor oil packs and do it in a very specific way." How often would you recommend people do castor oil packs? Do you recommend heating? What way do you recommend that they approach it? For anybody who's listening who's never heard of a castor oil pack. Oh, yeah. Firstly, castor oil is a very, very sacred oil from a plant that is around Africa and different parts of the world. world in African traditions the women like you know the origins and in Egypt it was seen as a really really sacred like it was an offering it was a very holy medicine so the way that we can the way that castor oil works is really supports to break down the likes of scar tissue or any sort of like lesions and density it supports to decongest the uterus so if you're someone who has pain or tension it's just f**** amazing** like if you are sometimes I find myself like it's a tool that I always have. But if I find myself getting a little bit like I'm sore or if I am experiencing something that I haven't in a while, I'll get a flannel like just a plain flannel that you want to destroy because castor oil is thick. It's gloopy. It's sticky. It's going to f*** everything up. It's going to destroy your linen trousers. Be so careful. Um so just do it in bed and then you can soak saturate the castor the castor oil with the flannel. Then you put it on your lower abdomen below your belly button above your pubic bone. your womb lives. Then you can get a hot water bottle if you want as well and just lie down 20 minutes and you can do this for my endometriosis women. I recommend like three times a day because we're on like strict strict protocol. So, but it's something that you can maybe meet the week before your cycle or a few times a month or a few times a week. It's really beautiful. And then rubbing your belly after to support the caster to move into your tissues. And if anyone ever needs any support with that. You can just message me on Instagram or anything. But it's amazing. You can also buy these hot water bottles that actually strap around you. I got one of them in I think yeah Harry Corey or something and you can strap it around and then you've got your flannel underneath so you can walk around the house and do your do your bits while you're castor oiling up. So yeah, it's amazing medicine. It yeah breaks down congestion if there's stagnation density scar tissue for cescareian scars for for any kind of scar tissue, kloid scars. It is f**** amazing. If you work it into that space often, it will break down the scar tissue. Such a beautiful medicine. Profound. So simple, profound medicine.** Yeah. It's so amazing cuz like even some of the folks that are go on a journey with me with their gut um and they use castor oil packs on their abdomen. And for some women that have um little lumps and bumps in their breasts, like it works. a treat. Like it is such like you say, it's such a beautiful medicine to be able to incorporate in. So on the back of all the raspberry leaf tea and the castor oil packs, there's such gorgeous and really easily accessible tools women listening to this episode can actually go out and just start to use and to to access from today, which is brilliant. Absolutely. And yeah, castor oil is my go-to when I'm working with women's bodies. I only use castor oil and on breast tissue, on intervaginal tissue, on perennium, anal, like the whole works. Castor oil, I go through a lot of it as you can imagine.

I love it. Yes. Yes. And tell me a little bit about um because uh you run your courses with um with regard to womb care and pelvic care. You have such beautiful offerings. Um tell me a little bit about womb massage um with regard to external womb massage and then we'll talk about a little bit with regard to how to maintain and care for the internal tissues. So how can women actually start to work with the womb and to come to fall back in love with the womb, massage the womb and tell it tell it that it loves it. Yeah, there's bringing your hands to your body for a first. Like there is specific parts that we can work with in line with the ligaments and also just the body of the uterus. That's a little bit deeper, but just starting and bringing your hands there and just holding your body, doing circles, starting to feel where is where is my womb in my body? Like, do we know that as women? We don't. We have a notion where it is, but have we felt her? Like, have we this is one thing I'm guiding my women in my sessions. I'm like, here she is. I can feel her. Here she is. That's the contact. Then from there, they're like, oh, wow. She's literally right there. And this life-giving space that like lives within my body is right there and I've been ignoring her. So, bringing your hands there and just massaging in circles, breathing into that space, just acknowledging when you're bleeding, if you're on your cycle, acknowledging that you're going through like a mini death process. You know, you're in this stage of winter, of decay, of death. This is why you feel emotionally out of sorts and you feel annoyed at everything because your body is actually shedding like you're experiencing a energetic, emotional, physical shed. setting of yourself. So, giving yourself some care, extra care and honor during that time can just really inform how you walk in the world as a woman and how you can how you show up for yourself in your life. I always say a woman in relationship with her womb, she walks completely different. She walks completely different like shoulders back, head up in her truth, in herself, in her power. This is her power, you know, the womb. So, yeah, bringing your hands there intuitively with some oil, some nice smells, whatever. You need some candles and yeah, creating a ritual to be with your body in that way. It's beautiful and it's right there. I love that.

Yes. Well, it's so interesting. We just recorded an episode last week, which is what we released last week with regard to cycle tracking. And already the amount of women that have contacted me to be like, "Oh my god, I did not realize in my many years on this earth that my body was doing all these different things that there was different discrete parts of the cycle and actually people weren't paying attention to their um discharge or even what their menstrual blood looked like the volume, the color. There is so much information that our body gives us when we just connect with it and we ask it to reveal what it wants to tell us, you know. f****** intelligent. And we've been stripped from this remebrance remembrance of intelligent. Even like the cervix, you know, the cervix, the part of our body that dilates to to birth, right? When we're bleeding, our cervix dilates, we're experiencing like on a body level an opening. That's why we feel more sensitive as well. Like if you want to speak to the body of like it's communicating something like it's opening, your womb is opening. You feel sensitive. ensitive, you feel more vulnerable, you feel more emotional because your body's actually like open energetically, physically, it's experiencing like an opening. When you're open, you're vulnerable, right? So, I just think, yeah, there's just so much intelligence in our cycles, in our seasons, and how they correspond with nature. And yeah, I just I love it. Like, and this is what I say to the ladies that I work with, the womb. Oh my god, I heard this beautiful thing a couple of weeks ago. It's like the womb is the heart of the tummy and I just my heart just exploded even hearing that. But the this like you say the cervix it's a portal. It's a portal to that heart.

And the thing about it is on an energetic level if this portal to the heart of your tummy is opening up. I just love what you're speaking into there. The sensitivity, the emotion, you are more energetically open and it it's such a beautiful sacred time that so many women have disconnected from. You know, for a lot of the fertility stuff that we do, we're seeing an a rise or an increase in immune related issues. Now, obviously the the the immune system is linked to the gut like we were saying and I think basically the foods that we eat, we're basically being poisoned with chemicals and crap and processed foods that are being falsely marketed to us as being healthy. We've lost touch with the land, organic food and like our connection. But then when we actually when so I do a lot of my blood interpretation from an energetic level. So every little hormone to me means something energetically. It isn't just a number on a page. And I find it fascinating because when I see a rise in inflammatory cells in the body, Obviously, from a physical level, we need to tend to that. But there's a part of me that's thinking, why is the womb space becoming a hostile environment that wants to attack in some of these women? And I don't like using the word hostile, but that's what a lot of women are saying to me coming in. So, it's to relate to what they're the words that they're using. But actually, when I speak to a lot of these women, from the time that they started getting their periods, it was almost like don't get pregnant. Like I hate my body because now I'm bleeding. It was almost like this complete disconnect from the sacredness of the monthly journey that these women were going on, the passage into this new era of their life and actually bring these women on a journey to fall back in love with their womb because it's a beautiful intuitive space. That's sometimes all these ladies need and actually all their inflammatory cells start to to decrease because they're not on a high defensive attack against the womb. Does that make sense? So much sense. It's f****** crazy. We have been like from we were in our maiden girlhood to this emergence of bleeding into our womanhood. We have been taught to be disgusted, to reject it. Oh, we've seen our mothers struggle with it. No, repress, don't get pregnant. Like, you know, oh, there's so much. And we whether we're of it or not are in this war relationship with our our womanhood with our bodies and then we're wondering why we're meeting these diseases because our body's like hello remember me like come back to me like I am I am the lifegiving space I am the origin of every single person on this earth that lives within the body of a woman there is so much wisdom and so much beauty and all of these symptoms or you know diagnosises that were we're given or they're put upon us, you know, is literally just our body like being like, "Hi, I'm going to speak really loud because you're not listening to me. And until you do, I'm going to give you a hard time. You're giving me a hard time. You're not listening to me, so I'm going to give you a hard time." And like you said, when a woman's like, "Oh, the inflammatory response changes. Like the the tissue quality changes. She starts to relax into the space and remember it as the way that these original women's care paradigms used to remember the womb. Like put it this way in Bise country in south central America the men of the tribe when a woman is menrating they go and they sit by her bedside the men of the tribe the chief specifically to ask for insight and guidance on the tribe on the weather. They seen her as an oracle when she was bleeding. And there was this reverence for women in this time and our our modern society. Um, you know, the birth of modern gynecology, James Marian Sims was a is a was a big big man in the a lot of f***** up stuff that happened to women. And from these times when we lost the original care culture in the 17th, 16th, 17th century where women were being cared for in home by herbalists, by medicine keepers, by body workers, by ancient women, by grandmothers, by medicine women and medicine men. From this point of this emergence of this sterilization of women, we have been taught and programmed to be at war and disconnected from our body and the health potential of it and just the beauty of it and the power and the ancientness of it. So, so with you on all of this. Oh my god, I'm literally my body is literally just vibrating listening to you speak. You're the channel for for change. I love this. And actually, it was so interesting as you were speaking and I actually was like, I need to speak into this because this beautiful guide Jonah Bark came in so strongly as you were speaking. I was like, oh my god, she's a representation of speaking the truth uh of the warrior goddess essentially and it she came in right behind you. I was like, this is quite powerful. Hell yeah.

Oh, I love it. And you know, h I just My body is tingling even hearing you speak into this. And you know for women to find their power with all of this again because I I usually speak into this in my womb healing sessions when when we talk about the power and the creative force that the womb holds and the energy that exists there. It literally can create a whole human in the space of 9 months. Like it blows my mind. And you know after studying medicine, the complexity that even every little cell has like it is just perfect and miraculous. So I usually say to the ladies that that I'm working with when we go on this journey with the womb, whether you choose to channel that energy into the creation of another life or whether you channel that creative energy into the world you want to create for your life, your soul's purpose, you know, your destiny. I said that energy can be channeled and used to change the world essentially. And if women can come more in touch with this energy and collectively rise within this, can you imagine the shifts that could occur on just a a local and a global level? It so powerful. All the all the local women walking about connecting to the moon would transform f****** Dublin for God's sake. I know. It will be electric. It'll be lit up like Christmas.

But seriously, it's so true. And

yeah, like I often have this thought as well. I'm like when someone tells me they're pregnant, I'm like what? And I I'm like it's do you realize what's happening here? Do you realize that you're literally carrying a whole life, a whole story, a whole future lineage? You know, it's and in the birth space in you know modern day midwiffery we're also taken from that of like the reverence birth isn't seen as a ceremony or a right of passage anymore it's seen as a medical emergency and that's a problem that we need to address as well because it's not women are literally fine you just you know be with her let but she also has to have that relationship of trust with her body and trust with her tissues and her understanding of her own anatomy the first time that we see our vulva can't when we're given birth or else be like what the f*** you know.

Well, it's so interesting because I do um energetic sessions with women at Holl Street and a lot of them are in those kind of final stages of their journey and I support women all through pregnancy with energetic support here at the practice and I say to them, you know, this is probably the biggest gift that you could ever give to your children is to do energetic healing to release yourself from the energy and the baggage you're carrying on behalf of the lineage that you do not hand that down, you know. But what's really fascinating, I've had some messages from women that were kind of coming up on their due date. They were due for induction and all of these things and we did sessions with them and I hear from them afterwards and they're like, "Tony, your voice went through my head the entire of the delivery. All that's all I could hear. Because actually it was it was just about giving them back some of the power that their body knew what it was doing. And the women were so nervous coming in to see me. And I was like, "You have the power. Trust your body. Trust your body." For when people come into me and they're kind of going over their their dates and we're having a little look at kind of fears that they have. Sometimes when we do some energetic work, breach baby and um kind of uh kind of issues with regard to the cervix dilating. All of these things have an energetic and an emotional component with regard to are you ready for the baby to come into the world? Does the baby feel safe based on your energetic uh expression of of welcoming the baby in when we do the energetic work around that it's it can be transformative. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are you in relationship with what means to be a mother. Have you fully met what that's going to look like? Have you sat in that with your partner? Like, you know, are you, you know, we'll never fully be ready, I don't think, for these things, but seem like it's so beautiful to hear you speak about this because in my practice as well, like we're so much preparation and so many components energetically are representing these challenges that we may meet in the birth space as well. And oh, it's so profound. Yeah. Wow. Oh, it's just amazing. And And so when I did I trained in medical acupuncture and um there has been some lovely work even just speaking into the science of it but they did this fantastic clinical trial where actually acupuncture for women who were over their their dates. Now there is obviously confusion with dates with regard to ovulation days and all these things which I see regularly but um for women who are on a journey with that acupuncture in this in this trial that they did consecutive day days of acupuncture for four days significantly um improved the outcomes for ladies. Um and sometimes people like to to see the science facts with some of these things. But what I actually found doing the the training in medical acupuncture was the relationship to the body, the activation of the nerve pathways, the shifting of the energy, you know, and actually just giving the body permission and telling the the womb, the cervix, all of these things through the nerve or energy pathways. It's okay. It's time now. You know, and I just so I love that if people are concerned about um going through an induction process, meditation, energy work, and um and acupuncture can be such a beautiful natural set of tools to support women to avoid the the drips and the peseries and all the things that come with it. You know,

trusting your biologically made for birth. That is why we have a womb. Like we are biologically designed for birth. And starting to get into some I know the free birth society and some of these amazing pages starting to absorb this beautiful information, these gorgeous videos of these women that are giving birth and they're trust. They're in that relationship of trust with their biology. And this is a big part of my work of like bringing women an integrator relationship with their physiology, their biological processes, and what it actually means to be a woman, like their how it feels to meet their breast tissue, and to know what healthy breast tissue feels like. To use a speculum on their own body so they don't have to go for a smear, that's very invasive. And being able to see, okay, this is what a healthy cervix looks like. This is what a healthy cervix feels like. And then moving from that place, this is what healthy internal tissues feel like, you know, and that's a massive part of Yeah. selfrust and allowing women to be so in deep relationship with these parts of their body they've been shamed away from. Don't touch, don't explore, don't look so that when they do come to birth or just how they exist in the world, they're like, I trust, I know my body. I'm in relationship with my woman, my womanhood, myself, my body, my tissues, my bones. the whole thing. Yes.

And how how do you um generally guide people to support their tissues, their internal tissues and to how do you begin to to support someone going on a journey with that? Because like you say, there is so much shame and taboo around this like and people are quite disconnected from their bodies. Some people have never seen what it looks like down there and you know that's problem. That is a real problem. This is the severance we're dealing with in relationship to ourselves as women and as men as well. You know, it's it goes across the board with our own bodies. But for me, I have um so my whole woman care sessions are I spoke a little bit about the way that I learned how to do this work. And I have women in a session for upwards of six hours. We have lunch in between and we work with the whole body, the whole woman. hair. So, we move through the back of the body, the whole back fascial channel of the body. We move to breast tissue if she wants. Some women don't want to meet these parts. Some women, it's it's up to the woman and what she wants to work on. But if she has a history of issues with her breasts or pain, we work with the breast tissue in this really loving way and support her to feel safe inhabiting her breasts and so that she can have healthy tissue there. And this is like an inc, you know, so many women have malignancies or you know they're going to get a mammogram and there's so much fear around what we feel in our breasts in terms of yeah cancerous tissue but um they don't consider lymphatic stagnation and cysts and how they can almost sort of look very similar and feel very similar as well. So regular breast work tissue work you know and receiving breast work is yes so taboo so scary for so many women but from this regenerative health space It's it's so profound and it can be so emotionally healing as well and it's also just like really important for your health. Then we work through down to the uterus, the uterine body, external womb massage, pelvic work, vulva tissue, external vaginal space, hands in work, internal work, sort of the way a physio would work but much slower. And we work with the cervix, the full like the full works. If women have had a tear or have any issues you know, with digestion or constipation, we do perennial work and anal work and yeah, it's all available and it's it's so the way that it's held, it brings up can bring up so much terror for women, but it's I always say it's probably one of the most profound things that you can give to yourself of being held in that way in a setting that's warm. You're on a big foam heated bed. You're it's candle lit. It's nourishing. We're speaking from a health perspective. but also just supporting you to unravel like trauma and pain that's in this in your body. And yeah, it's it's very profound. It's not the most common thing to receive, but women walk out of my space say they would have to get a physio session every week for a year. They come to me for two sessions and they that's enough because when we give the tissue enough time and we're not poking and prodding for 20 minutes and causing her a lot of pain, but we're in this listening relationship with her tissues and her body body regenerates from that place. When we give her that environment, it's it's like a miracle. It's miraculous care. I have seen so much regeneration in my practice. It makes me want to cry. Like women Yeah. being told they're f***** basically and that their scar is always going to be there and that they're always going to have intervaginal or sexual issues or that their breasts are always going to be sore and that they're never going to be able to conceive and all this stuff. And then they commit to this work. and then everything changes. It's Oh, wow. That is absolutely magic.

And oh god, that's so beautiful. And it's it's a journey of bringing women back to their bodies, like stripping away all of And I it's interesting the emotional response to that, like you spoke into the shame and the taboo around it, but also then the trauma that's held in the tissues.

So on an energetic level, sometimes when I'm doing this work, you can see the the remnants of instrumentation of um procedures of losses and so and I I do um see this quite often and it's one of the things that I that I work with after miscarriage the little light of the soul still trapped within the womb space because that might have been a pregnancy that was so desperately wanted that actually um the little energy still resides in that space and until actually release that energy to create space for new energy to come in. That could be one of the main things that blocks a new little light from coming in. So, all of this work is so important. Like, I can't emphasize enough just how transformative it can be for women to lean into that space and to go on a journey with their body and um and the heart in their tummy.

Oh my gosh, it's so profound. Like,

yes. Yeah, much needed much needed

much needed work what you're doing and what you're offering for women. You know, I admire you so much and

yeah, being a medical doctor and also offering these really deep energetic spaces for women to realize that there's more available. It's Yeah, real credit to you. I really admire you for that and I love how you're bridging worlds. It's really so beautiful. Yeah.

Thank you so much. And I really admire you too. Everything that you're doing and bringing a new well reimagining or bringing back the old way, the traditional way, remembering the wisdom. Um, and it's so beautiful to to have these discussions with such a beautiful wisdom keeper and um channel and voice with u with these beautiful guides that are coming to work with us in this session. And so just to recap, raspberry leaf tea, castor oil, packs, hands-on womb care, and hands-on in pelvic care. These are all really important components in addition to emotional and energetic care for women on a traditional uh journey. Is that is that a good summary?

Absolutely. And also just remembering that when you have a cut on the outside of your body, you fall and hit your knee and it's bleeding and you're in a lot of pain, you do not question for one second that it's not going to to heal. So why the f*** do we not have that same opinion about the other parts of our body? It all works the same. It's regenerative in its nature. I have seen over my years at this work crazy, miraculous, gobsmacked things happen. And I know that you have as well, Tony. And I really want for you as a woman to really hear that that it's possible to regenerate. Your body is regenerative in its nature. And magical and it's miraculous and it's so beautiful and sacred. So yeah.

Oh, it absolutely. Oh, it absolutely is. I love they are beautiful words to finish on because they are so accurate to what I see every single day. The the miracles that happen in this space. It just leaves me so baffled and astounded by by the power that women hold, the power that the womb holds, and actually just the power of the un universe and of energy and spirit and everything that we can work with to actually to help people transform and come back to the deep deep knowing and wisdom that their soul holds. I love it. And so Michaela, how do people work with you? How can they get in touch? Um what kind of what offerings do you have at?

Yeah, thank you. So yeah, there's a beautiful option for women who want to do some online stuff and dip their toes into yeah learning how to care for these your breasts self tending breasts, self-tending wombs, self-tending your internal tissues. I have a membership. It's yeah, really accessible. We meet every single month. There's a supportive community chat for women and we meet these parts of our bodies and there's also just a resource library with lots of different practices of yeah hands-on self-touch. We do work with the speculum here checking for cervical health. Like it's basically a whole woman health space that's growing every day. Then as well you can come to me for hands-on care, hands-on in care. ceremonial, whole day, multi-day, and residential body work sessions where you come here, I feed you, I midwife you for two days, and you're so held in postpartum, sexual health, breast care, whatever it is that you're needing support with. It's all tailored and unique to you as a woman. And yeah, that's available. You can find me on Instagram at Rooted Feminine Wellness. And also, if you're a woman, a physio, a midwife, a practitioner, and you want to deepen into regenerative women's care, I also teach women my work and my hands-on work because we're birthing a new culture of care together and it's so important that we start to remember these ancient ways and integrate them with our modern knowing of anatomy in the body. So, thank you so much. I hope to see some of you women come into the space and yeah, you would be so welcome to drop me a message or say hi on Instagram anytime. Yes, birthing a new culture. Oh my god, I love it. Thank you so much, Michaela. You are such a gift. to women. It's so beautiful to have had this conversation and I hope all of the listeners get so many tools and they themselves have received some of that wisdom to be able to hold themselves and other women uh in in a more traditional and uh holistic way. So, thank you so much for being here and yes, hopefully we'll get the opportunity to chat again soon.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Such a blessing to be here with you.