Brittany Estrada 00:00:00 This portal. The birth and death portal. It's a circle. It's the same thing. And we are missing so much of the beauty. By not allowing ourselves to really understand death and not even be comfortable with it, but just talk about it even.

00:00:20 Hey, Mary.

00:00:23 Can you tell me what it takes to dance around a woman story while we're busy casting stones about what she wore, she drank.

00:00:43 She did for glory.

00:00:46 Girls go hard.

Erica Boland 00:00:50 Hey, loves, I'm Erica.

Brittany Estrada 00:00:51 And I'm Britt. She's a chiropractor and midwife and she's.

Erica Boland 00:00:55 A nurse practitioner and womb healer. Together we are bridging the sacred and the scientific to help you step into deeper alignment with the incredible wisdom of your body.

Brittany Estrada 00:01:05 We are mothers, soul sisters, and women who are deeply devoted to serving the feminine collective. There is no topic we aren't open to exploring, and we are so looking forward to navigating this journey with you and our amazing guests.

Erica Boland 00:01:19 So settle in, preferably with a great cup of coffee. Put one hand on your heart and breathe as we dive in.

Brittany Estrada 00:01:26 Welcome to our community. Hello everyone! Welcome to another episode of the Womb Women podcast. Erica and I are so honored that you are here tuning in with us, and we're going to start out, as we always do, just connecting with our bodies and our breath. Especially given the topic we're going to dive into today, I think it will be really helpful to ground. So wherever you are, if you can please close your eyes, soften your gaze, and if you're driving, mean, just really allow the backs of your eyeballs to soften and just start to breathe. We spend so much time unconsciously holding our breath. So maybe for the first time today, can you just bring all of your awareness to your breath and maybe noticing the places where it feels a little challenging to send the breath? Maybe that's your low back down into your thighs. I'm just saying, if you can use your breath to create just a little more opening and spaciousness. And really bringing your awareness now into your lungs, specifically, the lungs are the place in the body where we tend to store a lot of grief.

Brittany Estrada 00:02:58 And I think because so often we don't take those big, deep breaths, really utilizing the full capacity of our lungs. That grief can get stuck there. So just bringing your awareness to the tops of your lungs and all the way down to the bottom of your ribcage, really feeling into their full capacity. And now sending the breath all the way down through your pelvic bowl, out the base, through the perineum and down into the earth, grounding you right here, right now, in this moment and on the next breath, sending it up, up through your throat, your third eye out, the crown of your head, connecting you to heaven and just breathing that in for a moment, healing into the very real fact that you are the connection between heaven and earth. Just a couple more breaths here and when you're ready, maybe move those bones a little bit, really ground into your seat and come to meet us for today's conversation. So we are recording on November 1st, and this is a really auspicious week for a lot of reasons.

Brittany Estrada 00:04:29 Yesterday was of course, Halloween. Halloween is the modern celebration of Sawan, which is an ancient Celtic celebration of the thinning of the veils so that thinning between life and death, the ability to really feel into the connection between us, the living and those who have passed on. So it's a really powerful time. This is celebrated by traditions around the world. My dad's family comes from Mexico, where Dia de Los Muertos is also being celebrated today. And that is an ancient Aztec holiday that then sort of got mixed up with All Saints Day in the Catholic tradition when the Spaniards came over. So there's just a lot of really potent energy in the field today. And also we have a new moon in Scorpio. So we are starting this new cycle in this very powerful sign that is all about this, like raw, primal desire going deep into our depths and really exploring the shadow parts of ourselves, which can often be portrayed as like scary. You know, we think of like dark magic, but the dark depths are so incredibly important because without the dark, we don't have the light, and we put so much emphasis on being like up and out of even up and out of our bodies on looking for answers outside of ourselves.

Brittany Estrada 00:05:57 And so what we're really being called into right now is coming down and in and really tuning in to what it is that we most need, most desire, most need to uncover within ourselves and to really grounding into that. This is a super feminine time of year and just a really beautiful opportunity. And of course, you know, we're talking about the thinning of the veil. So Erica asked if we could dive into the conversation about grief, which seems incredibly appropriate for this time of year. So, Erica, I would love for you to just maybe give our listeners some context on why this topic was really at the front of your mind, and we'll just go from there.

Erica Boland 00:06:40 Thanks, Britt, for the centering.

Erica Boland 00:06:43 So this week I lost one of my biggest mentors. And so Britt and I had a podcast recording planned. And when we were talking about, okay, do you still want to record? That's kind of been the question I've been asking myself all week. Do I want to be still or do I want to keep going? And it doesn't feel right to talk about something else when there's been such an immense loss left here on earth, in the midwifery field and in so many hearts.

Erica Boland 00:07:20 So Heather Cramer, my preceptor from Trillium, who I spent two years with training her and Alison, her and two of her sons were killed in a car accident this week. And it's just I mean, outside of the immense loss, it's so true, Brit, what you say, it brings up so much within you and it puts so much perspective. And I think that the more that you are in touch, from my experience with your spiritual health, you can see these times even really early in grief. You can see these times as like, how blessed am I to know someone and be trained by someone that has left such? I mean to feel that deep dark pain like you're talking about. That doesn't happen from a acquaintance. It doesn't happen. You know? That's not like a surface level connection. We have that deep grief, that deep pain, because there was so much life that she shared with so many. And I've had people, moms, reaching out to me that we supported through their care and births at Trillium.

Erica Boland 00:08:36 And it's like, also, you never know when the pain of it is just going to hit instead of the joy. And it does feel for me. I feel that like a lump in my throat. And Wednesday morning when I learned of her death, it was about 30 minutes before I was scheduled to see patients, and I was in the shower. Just a mess and thinking, what am I doing? Like why don't I cancel everyone? But the truth of it is, I've chosen a profession that I can come here and feel peace even without saying to my patients like, hey, I'm suffering this loss, please support me. It's like I can feel peace in supporting them. And also because she's such a big part of how I practice and I'm learning that more and more. So I wanted to talk about grief because there are no parameters Alison and I from Trillium had, I would say like the closest, other, closest grief I felt to this with Trillium as a practice was the unexpected stillbirth Alison and I attended, and I learned a lot about grief, especially in midwifery.

Erica Boland 00:09:46 But realistically, in the healing profession, grief is I mean, it's like how challenging and hard and how beautiful to walk grief in this profession, which is it's one of the reasons I quit nursing school, because I thought I could never support someone through loss. I could never I couldn't handle that. And then God or spirit or it's like, yeah, okay, well, you're coming back.

Brittany Estrada 00:10:16 It's coming back. Yeah. thank you for saying all that. We as a culture have done so much to just, like, stoke the fear about death. And we put so much emphasis on life. And then even, you know, in Christianity specifically, it's like this emphasis on, well, you don't have to fear death because you're going to this better place. But it's like the death part is really kind of like skimmed over. It's like you skip over that and you go to heaven. Right? And this has been such a deeply painful, beautiful lesson for me, having experienced pretty significant loss over the last several years.

Brittany Estrada 00:11:01 You know, I would say that I had really never experienced loss until my miscarriage with our first pregnancy, and I was so blown away by the depth of the grief. And to this day when I talk about that loss, I will still feel this wave of grief and tears come. And it's always so surprising to me being that it was, you know, ten years ago now. But I do think that that was a really important journey for me to go on, because it kind of opened my eyes up to what you're saying and how important it is for us in healing professions to be able to hold both. It's like it's going to do birth work. You better get really, really comfortable with also holding space for loss and for death because it's all connected. And you know, when my dad passed in 2019. That same week, I got called to a berth. I had kind of told everyone who had asked me to be their doula, like, I just don't have the capacity. Right now, I'm kind of waiting to be called to go to California to see my dad pass.

Brittany Estrada 00:12:13 Like I cannot attend a birth right now. And that same week I got a call from my dear friend. She was going through a miscarriage and she's like, I can't go to this birth. I'm bleeding. Like, I just can't do it. Can you go for me? And of course, everything in me was like, absolutely not. I don't want to do this. But also I knew that I needed to be there for my friend and for this couple. And so I showed up, you know, and didn't know them. That was the first time I had met them and got to walk with them on a really beautiful birth experience. And I remember, you know, during pushing, watching mama and I was calling to baby and just saying, okay, it's time. It's time to come, it's time to come like we do. And so like three days later, I flew home to California to be with my dad, and I think it was like another day after that when we woke up in the morning and just kind of knew, like it was going to be the day.

Brittany Estrada 00:13:01 And I remember sitting next to him on the bed, like as he was kind of taking his last few breaths and he looked at me like right before he passed. And I said the same thing, like, it's okay. It's okay to go. It's time to let go. And it just really struck me. Of course, it was a couple of weeks after I'd processed all of that, but it just really struck me. This is the same thing, this portal, the birth and death portal. It's a circle. It's the same thing. And we are missing so much of the beauty by not allowing ourselves to really understand death and not even be comfortable with it, but just talk about it, even.

Erica Boland 00:13:45 Absolutely. And when you think about when a baby is born, everyone in the room, no matter how few or how many people are there, the one thing that you are waiting for is for that baby to take a breath. That is the life force.

Brittany Estrada 00:14:04 Yeah.

Erica Boland 00:14:05 And with death.

Erica Boland 00:14:07 We're waiting for the last breath. And yet, you know, you started us this morning. Was saying, like, for the first time, just drop in and breathe. And we expect to navigate this life without utilizing that life force intentionally. And then so much gets stored. And I do think that grief in some way, death in some way, gives us permission to let that all out. And death is weird in our culture, how we experience it and how we process it. And Heather specifically, was a devout Catholic woman. I mean, so grounded in her faith. Everything she did was from there, unapologetically. And I loved that about her, even though we don't have the exact same beliefs. It's like it truly allowed her to feel and lead that. Everything will be okay. Everything will be okay.

Erica Boland 00:15:13 Yeah.

Erica Boland 00:15:13 So I've had thoughts over the week of like, man, because for my kids, there's been a lot of unexpected tragedy in our small community. You know, I'm like sending a football to be signed for a middle schooler who lost his mom a couple weeks ago, who was younger than, you know, like, there's been so much tragedy.

Erica Boland 00:15:31 And I think, man, I don't remember all of this when I was little, and I don't know if I was protected from it because we don't talk about it with our little kids, too. But my boys experience loss very early on with the death of a young cousin, and we've just kind of unspoken decided that we're going to talk to them about these things because I think, like anything else, if we talk about it more, it's not as scary. Yeah, because it is the only certain thing, which is wild to think about how we don't even look at it. You know, I could say like, it's wild to think about how we look at death. But the reality is, most of us don't look at it.

Brittany Estrada 00:16:08 Yeah. I mean, same thing with my boys. They've just experienced so much loss, mostly of, you know, family members, but even like our dogs. And it's really interesting to kind of have those conversations with them and just hear them talk about it because they aren't afraid.

Brittany Estrada 00:16:24 And I shared this with Erica. I think a few weeks ago my oldest son was choking. This is not funny, but he was choking on a piece of bacon as we were standing around having breakfast. And luckily I was standing in the kitchen and he just gives me these like deer eyes like, oh my gosh, I need help! And was able to kind of say help mom. And so I like run over to him and, you know, have to fully Heimlich him and the whole thing. And it was, you know, it was pretty scary for half a second. And so later on when we were talking about it, you know, trying to process that because I needed it. I don't know if he did. I just said, you know, buddy, that was pretty scary today. How are you feeling? He's like, you know, mom, it's okay. Like, if I would have died, I would have just gone to heaven. And I was just like, okay, we don't need to be that comfortable with death.

Brittany Estrada 00:17:11 But I also was like, okay. He's like, yeah, I would have seen Appa, which is my dad. I would have seen upon I would have gone to heaven. It would been fine. I was like, okay, well, you know, I guess that's good.

Erica Boland 00:17:20 It's so much more realistic, right? On the way home from a Halloween get together last night, Kyle decided to head down to his family's to hunt in Lake and said, I'm scared for dad to go after hearing about Heather. And I said, buddy, me too. I just was texting Taryn earlier in the day, the night before, because he wants to go to this get together and yada yada. And I'm like, I gotta be honest, dude, when things like this happen, it makes me anxious and I just want to keep you all in a bubble, and I know I can't, but I need you to understand where I'm coming from. At least so that you don't think like, oh, she won't let me do anything.

Erica Boland 00:17:57 Yeah. So I want to be honest with you about that. And I think before, especially before being at the death of baby Michael, at the birth and simultaneous death of baby Michael, I would have approached that conversation differently and said, you know, he'll be okay. And those things that we say that we cannot promise, we absolutely cannot promise. And instead it led to a conversation of, yeah, this is why we need to make sure that we have a spiritual practice and that we are really, really intentional so that during the hard times we can access some peace because that's when we need it the most. But the reality is that none of us are ever guaranteed anything. And, you know, talking to them from that place, not trying to downplay it, not trying to dramatize it more than it needs to be, but helping them to understand that it's okay to feel that. And you need to know that we're never promised any tomorrow. And I think kids are so much more intuitive than we are because it hasn't fully been squashed out of them yet, if you will.

Erica Boland 00:19:02 And Mack the other night were sitting on the couch and I showed it. Heather was one of the two midwives at Maclean's birth at home, and her youngest kids are about the same age as him because by the time she came to my postpartum visit, she had found out that she was pregnant with her twins and MacLean. I showed him her picture and, you know, of course they know her because she's shown up for so much for us. And he said, mom, do you still have her phone number? And I said, yeah. And he said, well, don't delete that, because when you feel like you want to talk to her, just call and then you'll hear her voice message and you can hear her voice. And I'm like.

Brittany Estrada 00:19:40 Oh my gosh, precious.

Erica Boland 00:19:42 Honey, I.

Erica Boland 00:19:43 Know, but I think a piece of advice or tangible to take I a few years ago read the book Bury Me Unbearable and I never can pronounce her name properly. It's Joanne starts with a C.

Erica Boland 00:19:58 I highly recommend it because it is the only book that I've read about grief, and I've read a few and my doula trainings and whatnot that really just there is no timeline. There is no right or wrong way, there are no rules. And to let people experience things differently and without judgment. And that's hard for us to do as humans in any aspect of life, let alone grief. And when we think like they should, oh my gosh, I can't believe. So. If you're in the healing world, especially in birth work, I really recommend reading that. Like you said, supporting people through loss. That impacts us as providers, as the support system. And you don't talk about it in the same way because it isn't our lost, it isn't our grief to share. So I highly, highly recommend reading that book.

Brittany Estrada 00:20:48 I also think it's really important. So for me, pretty much from the time that my dad got his diagnosis because it was terminal pancreatic cancer. So I immediately knew obviously he was going to die.

Brittany Estrada 00:20:58 So I was hit with a lot of anxiety because he was 59. So here I am thinking, oh my gosh, like, if I only have to, I'm 59, you know, what do I have to get done in this lifetime? That's like where my head was and like, yeah, what do I need to pass on to my kids so that they could be okay if I wasn't here and all the lessons. And then I just had horrible insomnia. And specifically in our medical system, the immediate answer is medication, right? The immediate answer is let's medicate this away. Yes. And there is absolutely a time and a place for that. And also those symptoms are your nervous system your body's way of processing. So when we don't allow that to happen like it just gets stored in there. Yeah. And I see that so often in my practice, it's like we've just tried to put up this wall between us and our emotions and our symptoms, and they're not gone. We're not conscious of them anymore because the medications are kind of taking that from us.

Brittany Estrada 00:22:13 And it's going to manifest in one way or another, because your body is asking for you to deal with that. So that being said, you know, I certainly worked with all kinds of different herbs to help me function because I had two little kids at the time and work and like, needed to be able to function. And also I had to give myself a lot of grace and a lot of space to move through it. And, you know, for me, talk therapy has just not ever really resonated. But I had a team of people, I had energy healers, and I was getting acupuncture and, you know, people that I could talk to about this safely and process with, like that was super, super important because I certainly couldn't have done it, you know, in isolation. Yeah.

Erica Boland 00:23:00 It's the difference between supporting your nervous system spiritually and physically and numbing your symptoms.

Brittany Estrada 00:23:08 Yeah. And I mean, this is when people will turn to also alcohol and other drugs because they're trying to numb, which I totally understand.

Brittany Estrada 00:23:16 So again, you know, I think what you said was so important, like having some kind of a spiritual practice that helps ground us. Having a support system, having things you can call upon is really important because it can be so much to carry. It can be so much to bear. I remember like just that overwhelming feeling of like, I don't want to get out of bed today and I've got to go take care of these kids. Like, how am I going to do this in.

Erica Boland 00:23:43 The different stages, too? And knowing that that is also okay and that is normal. And even in the very, you know, the first alpha day or day, the anger, I mean with my father. He is a severe alcoholic and he is making awful choices. And I found myself so mad at him because I was like, why does someone that has no regard, no regard for his own life right now or other people's the way that he's acting continue to live, and someone that had so much regard for the lives of others and the, you know, why are they taken? And it's like, and then I feel guilt about that, but I am in touch with grief enough to know that those things are going to come up.

Erica Boland 00:24:37 And if I allow them, whatever it is, I can start to move through it. It doesn't mean it's not going to come back up, but I can start to move through it instead of try to continue to suppress.

Brittany Estrada 00:24:50 Yeah. And I think, again, just giving ourselves grace because, you know, it's been five years since my dad passed and there will be these random times when all of a sudden I am somewhere and, you know, hear a song or just a memory of him in my head and I just lose it. And I just can be so hard on myself because, like, I thought I moved through this. Yeah. You know, we're like that with so many aspects of our mental health and also our physical health. Like, well, I thought my body had taken care of this. I thought this injury was healed. I thought, you know, we talk about this with the pelvic floor, right? But no, it's just it's a spiral. It's just deeper layers that are needing to come up so that they aren't stuck in your body, causing dis-ease 100%.

Erica Boland 00:25:34 I agree with you 100%. We can get very much like, okay, if I check this box, then I will, you know, let me read this book, let me do this thing. Let me do that. Then I will have healed from this. And then being frustrated with ourselves when it's like, well, I thought I healed from it. I thought it was done as if we're just we never have to revisit the past or never. You know, it's this human experience is interesting. And the older we get, the more perspective we get. So true.

Brittany Estrada 00:26:03 So I think to close out my invitation for everyone is, again, to recognize where we are in the wheel of the year. We are fully in fall. We are being asked to really look around at nature and see what's happening. The trees are releasing. They're kind of going through this death cycle. They're releasing their leaves. They're going to go totally barren, and they're going to rest for the winter time. And it is this time of going inward, conserving your resources, just letting go of what needs to die in all of us.

Brittany Estrada 00:26:39 And it is a really good time to really sit with grief and allow it to come, allow it to bubble up in any way that it needs to. This is the invitation right now.

Erica Boland 00:26:52 Thank you Britt.

Brittany Estrada 00:26:53 Thank you all for tuning in and we will see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Womb Women podcast. We are thrilled you joined us today and hope you found the conversation as inspiring as we did to connect with us further. Follow me, Britt, on Instagram @TheBrittEstrada and Erica at @TheMovementMidwife. For more information on how to work with us, check out our websites linked in the show notes. We can't wait to have you join us for the next episode, but until then, we invite you to step into your power and embrace the wisdom of your body.

00:27:29 Bye for now.

Brittany Estrada 00:27:45 Just as a reminder of the information shared here is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice.

Brittany Estrada 00:27:52 Always consult your health care provider for any medical questions or concerns.