Innate Wisdom Podcast

What It's About:

Join Loren Sofia, Functional Fertility Coach and owner of Innate Fertility, and Panquetzani, traditional herbalist, healer, birth keeper and owner of Indigemama, as they talk about the healing magic of Traditional Mexican Medicine.

In this episode, you’ll learn about:

• Panquetzani’s personal journey into Traditional Mexican Medicine
• The mismatch: ancestral healing in a modern society 
• How to maintain the sacredness of our food when honor is lost
• Why womb care is essential for every woman
• What causes a “dropped” and “cold” uterus, and the consequences
• Mayan abdominal massage & real womb care tips
• How womb care can support you on your fertility journey
• The undertaking of healing generational trauma
• And so much more!

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Loren: Welcome to the Innate Wisdom Podcast. I'm your host, Loren Sophia, healer of my own fertility and health struggles, mother, functional fertility coach to thousands of women, and owner of Innate Fertility. I believe your body is innately wise, and so is your fertility. Sometimes we just need the tools to unlock it in abundance.

I'm honored to guide you through each episode where we'll cover not just fertility, but how to rediscover the innate wisdom of your body. Restore your connection with your physiology, bioenergetics, and metabolism, and get back in touch with Mother Nature and ancestral traditions.

This week, I'm happy to introduce you to someone special. Pankitsani, a traditional herbalist, healer, birthkeeper, and owner of Indije Mama. In this episode, we'll be talking about the magic of traditional Mexican medicine. If you've heard of Mayan abdominal massage, this is where it comes from. Abdominal massage is one of the many healing sauvadas or massages that have been used since ancient times in indigenous Mexican culture.

I personally love abdominal massage and in most cases encourage everyone to get one. I did a few leading up to my pregnancy. Not only is it a massage though, But it is the reconnection of yourself to your womb, which can be so powerful and is what makes this massage so special. Because a lot of us have lost the connection to our womb.

Maybe it's due to birth control, which quite literally shuts off the connection between your brain and your ovaries. Or it could be from trauma, and a way to protect yourself. Or maybe it's something else. But regardless, this connection to your womb is more powerful than you know. Especially when it comes to trying to conceive.

Because your womb, not your house, is your home. apartment, condo, or anything else is your baby's first home and the energy that you carry in it and in you can make it that much more inviting for your baby to join you here if you've been calling to them. In this episode, we'll also be talking about practical womb care tips.

So don't worry, I got you covered. Stay tuned and I hope you enjoy it. Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Innate Wisdom Podcast. Today, I'm super excited to welcome Banketsani to the podcast. Welcome. How are you doing today? 

[00:02:39] Panquetzani: I'm good. Thank you. Thank you for having me. 

[00:02:43] Loren: Oh, it's my pleasure and honor.

I love your work and I'm so excited to share it with the audience. And just in case, you know, the audience isn't familiar, would you mind sharing more about yourself and your story? 

[00:02:58] Panquetzani: Yeah, of course. My name is Pankitsani. That means lifter or holder of banners in my Indigenous Nahuatl language. A lot of folks don't know that Nahuatl is one of the most predominant languages of Mexico.

And it's the language that my abuela and my father's Side grew up speaking. Her father spoke it. Her grandfather spoke it. She was raised by her grandparents. And so I began this work, uh, really just by being born into the medicine. It was inherited and I didn't know that other people grew up differently until I was older.

Even all throughout high school, a lot of my friends Just, we came from traditional families, and you honor the cuarentena, and you have specific customs around bleeding, around menstrual health, around cooking, you know? And so, I didn't know that there was something really special that a lot of people didn't grow up with until 2008.

when I had my first son. And folks were seeing, like, that I wrapped myself with the faja. You know, my abuelas were always like, wrap yourself with the faja, you need protection, you need support. Um, folks were like, oh, can you show me how to do that? Sure, here, I'll show you. And I had to put into words what I learned without words.

I had to come up with language to teach. my friends and my family. At that point, I took a doula training. This is 2008. I took a doula training and I wanted to really step into supporting my community in this deep way. And I was under the false belief that if I took a training and got a certification, then that would make me credible.

But what happened was the opposite. I went into this training and I realized how much was missing. It felt empty to me, and I realized that I already have everything that I need inside of me. The inheritance, the legacy of wellness that my ancestors preserved for me, this is actually what I'm supposed to be doing.

And so, after that training, I went off and I taught free childbirth education classes through an Indigenous lens. I taught folks all of the practices that my abuelas taught me about herbs, about traditional cooking from scratch, about body work, about energy, about emotions. I just brought everything with me and I did all of this work for free for years.

Until one day, I was doing body work with the reboso. In case you don't know, a reboso is, uh, almost like a shawl. It's made of a, it's made using the backstrap loom, which is a indigenous technology. It's native to Mesoamerica. And so, it's very tightly wound, usually cotton or agave fibers. We use it for all types of things.

We use it for healing, we use it for body work, we use it for protection, we use it for clothing, we use it for carrying babies, for carrying things, for working. And so I had to spend all day working with the family. And when families come, this is, I feel like this is like universal indigeneity, you come and it's like intergenerational, right?

It's not just like the person who I'm working with. It's the person, their other children, the partner, the grandmother, the friend, the friend's boyfriend, the friend's children, you know? And so it's, it's a big party. And I had a pot of food in the slow cooker and that was my food and my children's food for the day, right?

I'm a busy mom, I cook from scratch, so I make it all together. The veggies, the beans, the rice. And of course I offered to them because I got that abuelita energy. I learned from my family. And when you work on people, it's not just like an in and out thing. It's not a transaction. It's like a, it's, it's an embrace.

So if there's food cooking, if you, if you walk into the house and it smells like delicious food and delicious tea, then you, you give it to them. You serve them. Even if they say no, you prepare a plate just in case they're being modest. You know, you give them food to go. And so this generosity that's as old as the sun is in me.

What I didn't realize is that they finished my whole pot. They finished all my food. That was the plan for the day. I didn't have anything extra. I didn't have anything, you know, I don't use cans. I don't use boxes. I didn't have anything else except for that one pot of food. And so when they left, my kids, were crying because they hadn't eaten.

They were too overstimulated and excited, having so much fun that they didn't feel in their bodies that they were hungry. And I was too focused on my clients to bring them into their bodies, to slow them down, to sit them down so that they could feel that they're hungry. There was no food. And so I'm feeling pretty shitty and I'm feeling angry.

I'm like, how could they? Eat all of my food without caring about my children. Like, I don't care about me, you know, but my kids. How could you, how could you not care about my children's survival when I'm literally massaging your pregnant womb? And I care about your baby. And I care about all your babies.

And I care about your family. And I'm doing this work. And so I went into victim mode, where I felt taken advantage of. I called my partner. At the time, who's not my ex, the father of my first two children, and he didn't answer. Finally, he pulls into the driveway, and he sees that the house is a mess from the kids.

you know, living their best life. They see that the kids are hungry. The kids were, were muddy because they were playing with mud in the garden, in my garden. And he's like, why is the house like this? Why are the kids like this? They're hungry. And I'm like, yeah, can you go grab groceries? And he's like, no, you made this mess.

You clean it up. And he left. And when he did that, I felt so angry because what I needed was support at that time. And what I got instead was rejection. And so I went on a downward spiral of, I'm a victim in this situation. Crying with my babies. My babies were crying and I started just crying with them. I didn't know what else to do until finally I just have a moment of clarity.

And I realized that. All of this is happening because I set the stage for this. I allow people to come into my home. I allow this relationship and I'm no longer going to allow people to take without reciprocity. I'm no longer going to allow giving of myself without pouring back into myself 10 times. If I want my children to thrive, I need to thrive.

in order for them to thrive. And Indigamama was born out of that. It was born out of my willingness to take ownership, take autonomy of my gifts and my family, and use them in ways that poured back into me while also interchanging that medicine with my people. 

[00:11:37] Loren: I think that's so beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that.

And I think it nods to a lot of What mothers go through in general, you know, they, they give, give, give, and then they kind of put themselves in the back, in the back seat and let their health, their wellness, their needs take, uh, you know, second, third, a hundredth place. To everything else that they are putting forth for their children.

And it's a good reminder that, you know, you need to fill your cup in order to show up the best version of yourself, not only in the world, but especially for your kids. And I think that that is so beautiful. And I love that you have such a unique experience. I feel like most people. are on a path to rediscovering ancestral traditions, whereas you embody it and have lived it and are sharing and spreading the word.

And I think that's such a unique perspective to bring, because you, you got it from the source. your abuelita and that's, that's beautiful.

[00:12:42] Panquetzani: Thank you. I feel like one of the powerful things in this is that I was already advocating for self care. I taught self wound care. I gave self wound care trainings, but what I needed to do was learn self care on a whole other level.

So it was like, okay, I got to this level where I did steams. I did castor packs. I did self massage. I'm doing the things. Well then why is my life like this? So I had to really go in, I really had to literally hit rock bottom, downward spiral. I like to call it alchemy. I really had to face my reality to be like, oh, actually, I could do this deeper.

I could do this bigger. I could do this different. I could show up in a way for myself that is times a thousand. And once I did that, once I left the relationship, once I Started in Digimama. I was able to thrive and my children were able to thrive. I was able to homeschool them for 12 years in community, feeling fully supported.

We had 50 families. I was able to travel and teach. I was able to cook from scratch, go to the farmer's market once, twice a week, get free produce, everything that we needed. And it's been an amazing awakening that my children have brought to me, because if it were just me, I wouldn't have had that awakening.

You know, I was happy, like, living my life. You know, I was, when I was, uh, before I had kids, I was a musician. I was an artist. There were times, you know, I'd sleep in the car. We'd go on road trips. We didn't know where we were staying. We had no money to get back. We had to play for money on the street to get back.

And it was all, like, fun. But once I had kids, they forced me to get grounded and focus on sustainability and really what autonomy means in my body and in my community, starting with families. 

[00:15:02] Loren: I think that's so beautiful and just another way that your story has unraveled in an even more beautiful way. So I think that's, again, a really great reminder for anyone listening who maybe feels like things are a bit out of control for them.

And it sounds, you know, a lot like you, you took radical responsibility for what was going on and just that switch just completely changed the trajectory. Uh, so. I hope that your story provides hope to others, maybe going through what you were going through back then. Thank you. Yeah. So moving back to your work, I love that it centers on reclaiming wellness with ancestral healing, the healing, you know, that you grew up with and It's no secret we live in a very modern society and we're very detached from our ancestral traditions, whatever they may be.

And I'm, I'm wondering if you could answer because I, I think this is important. So why should we pay attention to what our ancestors did and how can it benefit us? 

[00:16:13] Panquetzani: When we pay attention to what our ancestors did, there's a natural unfolding of wellness. A lot of people use the term decolonization, right, to, to undo the harm that colonialist patriarchy has, you know, the, the harm that they've caused to especially black indigenous people of color.

And so when I think about ancestral healing. It is resistance. It is a legacy of wellness. A lot of folks will say, oh yeah, Mexican food is bad. It's unhealthy. Uh, yeah, because they're thinking about Taco Bell. That's their only reference. They're thinking about living in poverty and no longer being able to use lard and tallow using canola oil and vegetable oil instead.

But when you go back, and you come back to these natural whole ingredients that they were originally cooked with, they're actually health foods. They're sustainable foods. We use all of the parts of the animals. I remember my abuela, she would make, uh, she still does, she's amazing. She makes this amazing broth and she cooks it three times.

The first time is the most gelatinous parts of the animal only and that's like to extract the gelatin, all the good stuff, the patas, the nervios, I don't even know what they're called in English. Patas are probably like wet flecks. Yeah. Hoops maybe. And it's taking out the gelatin, the collagen, and then she cooks it again.

with the actual meat that we're gonna eat. So we still eat the meat off the bones, but then it's like whatever meat that we're gonna eat. If it's menudo, then it's the intestines. If it's beef, then it's like the delicious parts of the beef with bones and no bones all mixed in. If it's chicken, then it's the boiled chicken with bones and everything.

So that's the second part. Then she takes it out when it's nice and moist. Still, still tender. And then she'll add the vegetables. So that's like cooked three times. It takes hours, especially with her gigantic ollas that she cooks. She cooks for our whole family. We're, we're a large family. She herself had eight kids.

My mom had two, I had four, you know, and it's just like, it's a lot of people. We're keeping to the Indigenous tradition. I love it. We're a fertile family. And so this is hours and hours of labor that she's putting in to the most delicious broth. And she even uses the lard. You know, the next day she scrapes off the lard, and then she processes the lard, and she uses that for her skin, she uses that for cooking, um, for her skin, she'll cook down the lard a couple times, so like different parts of this soup are going different places, and like being processed naturally.

I remember she used to keep a little, it was like, you know, one of those fancy, uh, makeup glass jars in the fridge and it was just fat, you know, it was fat cooked down and it was odorless. because of how she cooked it and strained it. And it was so rich and so soft. And me and her, we'd go to the fridge.

She'd be like, okay, it's hora de la belleza. It's beauty time. And she'd, she'd spritz the back of a lemon. She'd squeeze it on her face. You know, it's like, almost like a little, a little perfume. She puts it on her face and then she puts the, the towel or the lard and rubs it on her face, her neck. And my mom, she's like, ew, mom, stop doing that.

You need to stop. You're going to get sick. And I'm like, actually, this is the best thing that you could do. It's better than seed oils. It's better than all of these toxic products that you buy at the store that are actually endocrine disruptors. And yes, it's a longer process. Yes, it's a dedication and it's a discipline.

But when we slow down to do these things, when we have this discipline and dedication, our bodies are healthier. 

[00:21:06] Loren: I think that's a, there's a lot to unpack there, but I think that what you're saying is really profound. And it's so interesting because I think we're also, the way that society operates, it's about rapid results and it's all manufactured.

Everything's as fast as possible because that's going to get us the biggest bottom line. And um, the way that our food is made now is Not really for our health, but it's for profit, of course. And so it's what, what ingredients are going to cost the cheapest. And then how much more money can we make if we swap out this for this and slow food, the slower processes.

slow beauty. They're, they may take more time, but they're so much more worth it. And I think it's this, this sort of modern society has also conditioned us to look for the same though. And I think that's something that we really have to work hard to kind of undo because The way that everything operates, it conditions you to think that the best is the fastest or to think that your health problems are going to be solved with this one pill, or to think that the food that you eat, it's okay if it's just, just a quick rise and comes in a package and has been sitting on a shelf for, I don't know, months, but I think when you can start to realize that You know, the expectation of health and wellness isn't necessarily the way that it presents in our society.

I think you can start to really find more health and wellness and actually start to unlock it. And I love what you shared about the broth that your abuelita makes that is just hours long, but it's so intentional too. There's so much intention to what she's doing. And there's no waste, and everything is just as nourishing as possible.

And then you also get additional things from that broth, like beauty care products that are just so much better than anything any store has to offer. And yeah, it's amazing. 

[00:23:20] Panquetzani: I feel like the fact that a lot of us will trust packaged products because we think they're cleaner or better for us, that distrust is a product of capitalism, colonialism, industrialization, and it doesn't benefit us.

This is why I teach, I have a course called Matrici Concha, Lifelong Self Womb Wellness, and I teach folks how to create their own herbal blends, how to create their own casserole packs, how to create, how to make their own meals from scratch, because a part of this distrust keeps us disempowered. And so we become, after generations, we become reliant on these packaged products.

because they're quote unquote better. I'll never forget when my, my aunt, she volunteered at her daughter's school and she said, you know, something really sad happened today. We were gardening and I was showing the kids the carrots and how beautiful it is to eat from the earth. And the kid said, ew, that has dirt on it.

Oh my goodness. She's like, you wash off the dirt and they eat it. And they're like, no, it's. It's dirty. I'm not eating that. That's a whole other conversation. 

[00:24:48] Panquetzani: Yeah. 

[00:24:49] Loren: A can of worms. It's so good for your microbiome and your gut and just connecting with nature. 

[00:24:56] Panquetzani: Yeah. Yeah. When we come back to this, we empower ourselves and our children see this and they empower themselves.

[00:25:04] Loren: Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on that. I really appreciate it. And I do want to come back to the womb care that you mentioned because A lot of your work focuses on womb care, and I'm wondering if you can break down for the audience. Maybe those of, of the audience who aren't familiar what that means exactly and why you should care about your womb.

Uh, because I think it's not really something that is core to at, at least when it comes to fertility or health and wellness in general. It's just like nutrition, exercise, sleep, sunlight, but there's this piece that's missing and I'm wondering, you know, can you, can you share more about why you should care about it?

[00:25:49] Panquetzani: Yeah, for sure. Um, first I come from the school of Mexican traditional medicine, which I like to differentiate between Mesoamerican medicine. Mexican traditional medicine is what you see practiced almost globally. Mexicans everywhere will take Mexican traditions anywhere they go. And so this is what my abuelas did.

They crossed the border from Northern Mexico. My, my abuela, um, my maternal abuela is from Northern Mexico, Coahuila, Durango, Zacatecas, that whole area historically. And so she crossed the border and she brought all of her medicine with her. What she practices, there's a lot of curanderas in Texas, in Arizona, who practice similarly.

And this collective body of knowledge is Mexican traditional medicine. Mesoamerican medicine is the root and the mother of Mexican traditional medicine. Mexican traditional medicine is post colonial and it uses herbs that grow A lot of the herbs that grow invasively in our regions. So in California, the herbs will be different than Arizona.

In Arizona, the herbs will be different than in the Midwest. Everybody uses their own different hierbas. And so this is post colonial indigenous healing with the inclusion of non indigenous herbs. So we adapt to our surroundings. And in Mexican traditional medicine, we have the indigenous Mesoamerican understanding of womb wellness.

Something that is, that really stands out about Mesoamerican medicine is that we believe in the movement or the prolapse, the falling, the moving of organs. And one of those internal organs that moves is the uterus. And if you come from a Mexican traditional family, then you may have heard things like, don't go outside with your hair wet.

Don't go walking on barefoot floors, especially after taking a shower. Don't go from cold to hot, especially on your period. All of these things are remnants of indigenous medicine in Mexican traditional medicine. We believe that the uterus should be two to three fingers below the belly button and two to three fingers above the pubic bone.

midline. And if it's not perched in this perfect position, then you have a matriz caída. A matriz caída is a dropped womb. A dropped womb is different than a medical, a medically diagnosed prolapse. A medically diagnosed prolapse is like a really, really dropped womb. It's going down into your birth canal, down into your vaginal canal.

It's falling out of your body. For us, a matriz caída could be that and the smallest movement. Tilt to the left, tilt to the right, tilt to the back. All of that is a matriz caída. In order for your uterus to function properly, it needs warmth. And if it doesn't have circulation, just thinking about it from a logical standpoint, that means you're not getting blood flow, which delivers hormones.

Right? So of course this makes sense. If you have stagnation, if you have inflammation, if you have coldness, lack of blood flow, then you as a hormonal person with various hormonal feedback loops, you're not going to thrive the way that you should. This is why in Mesoamerican and Mexican traditional medicine, we have sobadas de matriz or acomodadas where we massage the person's belly and we adjust the uterus.

This is something that I learned from my sobadora. She had a couple of daughters who didn't want to learn and she knew that I was a traditional birth worker. So I would go to her for my sobadas. I brought my clients to her for sobadas. And she's like, Oh, well, so every time I brought her a person, she would work with me and teach me.

She taught me how to find the ovaries. She taught me how to do the acomodadas. And this went on for two years of just hands on training. Just that was my job, you know? And so When she retired, I felt like I wasn't able to do the work. And my clients, people who I had already worked on, they were like, well, you did it before and she was there.

So just do it again. And I was like, no, I can't. I need her. I need more training. And then finally my friend, she's like, you know what? She just, we were in the kitchen. She laid down on the cold kitchen floor. She's like, uh, uh, fix me up. And I was like, Ooh, heavy on the cold kitchen waiting for me. Okay. And it was so easy.

It just felt innate. It felt so natural for me to do this. And this is how I started with the acomodadas, with the acomodadas de matriz, with the soladas, this added to all of my knowledge, my, my herbalism base, my gastronomy base, and my indigenous Mexican traditional medicine base. It added to all of this.

And so when folks have their womb exactly where it belongs, then they're able to recover. From anything, different things could cause a dropped womb. It could be spiritual, emotional, or it could be physical. When we're talking about physical things that drop the womb, childbirth is a big one. Pregnancy and childbirth, even if you don't, you know, even if you have an abortion or an early miscarriage, it still drops the womb.

Just pregnancy. Even a very short pregnancy could drop the womb. Foods that are inflammatory, that inflame the gut, could weigh down the colon, push down the uterus. So that's another one. It's another physical cause. Another one is wearing the wrong shoes. Especially, one thing I've seen is runners, especially marathon runners, like hardcore runners, They have such tense uterine ligaments and I've seen a lot of them have A lot of them have caesareans or breached babies.

It's almost like they're so tense like it doesn't open up, right? So that's one of the physical causes of dropped womb. It's like running, walking in the wrong shoes on the wrong surface with the wrong shoes. Um, I'm all about healthy feet. I don't know if you've seen my fat feet selfies that I post sometimes.

Walking on the earth, I'll hike barefoot because this is a part of womb wellness, right? When you're, when your feet, when you have nutritious movement in your feet, you have nutritious movement in your legs, your pelvic floor, and your uterus. We don't think about the way that Living in a modern society really is an assault on our bodies.

It's doing a disservice to our wounds and our pelvic floor when we sit in a chair in the shape of an L for hours versus sitting on the floor with our legs spread in different positions to stay comfortable, activating different muscles to support our bodies. You know, this is nutritious movement. In my home, we don't have any western furniture.

We don't have couches. We eat on the floor. We lay on the floor in hammocks. So, this is a part of keeping our bodies healthy, and the children, since they've known it, you know, since they were small, I have kids, uh, I have four kids, ages 3 to 14, and none of them have issues sitting on the floor. It's like, they're like, oh, it's so comfortable.

And when there's a blanket, it's like, wow, luxury. Because our bodies, especially when you start from the beginning, like our bodies are just meant to be massaged by the earth. And when we don't have this, this damages our reproductive organs. This damages our hormonal health. And so, some spiritual causes or emotional causes of a matriz caída, dropped womb, or susto.

Susto is a shock, a surprise, usually not a good surprise. That's the only way that I could describe it in English, but it's one of the things in Mexican traditional medicine that could make us feel like we're just like out of our bodies for a second. And that being out of your body for a second and being scared and that like shivering and like coming down and like, oh, okay, I'm okay.

And that breathing, that whole process is susto. And that could cause a dropped womb. I have a client who came to me. She's one of my longest clients. I've been seeing her for 14 years. And she only comes as needed, you know, as needed, because she knows when her womb drops. And so, this last time she came, she's like, Panque, I went outside and my dogs were fighting and I literally felt my womb drop.

Like, I felt so helpless and I was so scared. That's a susto. You know, so Susta, she has so much, so much awareness of her body because of all the years that she's had body work by me, that she knows the second that her wound drops. So this susto could cause your womb to drop. I don't know if you've, if you've ever experienced, but a lot of folks will say, like, if their kid falls, like if they're at the park and they like slide off the slide.

This is a true story. Um, I had a friend who, was with her son, and he was sliding down the slide and somehow like right at the top going down He flipped off the slide. He's fine. That's why I'm laughing. He flipped off the slide and she said all she did was was get up to run, but she felt her womb drop and she had back pain after that, right?

We always get up. We always do. We always get up fast, but it's just this emotional susto that causes the dropped womb. So there's susto and then there's, in terms of emotions, there's that fear. So emotionally, when you think about the uterus, this is a protective organ. It protects your internal organs, it separates your internal organs, and it protects the life that grows inside of it.

It's also a sustainable organ. Whatever it creates, a. k. a. a baby, if it creates a baby, it doesn't want the umbilical cord attached forever. It wants this baby, it wants to let go of this baby, and it wants the baby to eventually go off and be sustainable and autonomous from the uterus. So this is the energy that we create with.

If you ever feel lack of creativity, lack of inspiration, or if you're going and you're feeling creative and then it just stops, it just dies, or it's just easily killed, then this is a sign of a Matriz Caída. A lot of folks will feel a matriz caída when they're prevented from protection. So if I wanted to protect myself from something emotional, but I couldn't.

If I want to protect someone I love somehow, but I can't. This is also a cause, an emotional cause of a matriz caída. The uterus is a protective organ. It's a guardian. Right? And so if we're not allowed to use this uterus and their energy, then of course it's going to be out of balance. It's going to drop.

[00:39:11] Loren: Hey, Loren here. If you're wanting to incorporate womb care into your conception journey, look no further. Womb care looks like mind, body, and spirit, FYI. And this is what I teach you in my course, Conscious Conception. You'll not only learn the steps to connect to your womb mentally, but also spiritually, if that floats your boat, and physically too.

I teach you many self body work modalities that you can perform on yourself to help you connect with your womb, but also increase blood flow to your womb and break up scar tissue as well. I also teach you my protocols for supporting a healthy uterine lining and healthy eggs to make your womb As plush and inviting as possible for your baby and your eggs as healthy as possible.

And also make your room a cozy place to implant and grow. Don't knock the mental stuff either. I've had students say this was the missing piece to their conception journey after all their years of trying. I invite you to learn more by visiting innatefertility.org/get pregnant for more information.

And if you're loving this show, visit Don't forget to leave a review. Now back to the episode. Thank you for that. I think you made so many great points and it just goes to show how your body and your mind, you can't really separate them. And then that your womb is not this separate thing either from the rest of your body.

Cause I think also with conventional medicine, we compartmentalize so many issues. And, oh, your mind can't be connected to this issue that you're having with your digestive system or your fertility. But in reality, it's all connected. So I really appreciate that aspect of Mexican traditional medicine, where it really takes the whole person into account.

And I've had the most powerful healing sessions in my, my abdomen massage sessions. Because, I've never experienced anything like it, honestly. 

[00:41:16] Panquetzani: Yeah, it is nothing like it. You could go for visceral massage, Mercier, you know, any other type of belly massage, but in Mesoamerica, we really just went in on the guts and the reproductive organs and it's just so powerful.

When you get in there, like, imagine If there are, if you know the saying, the issues in the tissue, if there are issues in the tissue, imagine what the uterus holds on to. Imagine what the deep muscles in your pelvic floor hold on to, you know. Imagine what your psoas holds on to. Imagine what your bones, your hip bone, your pubic bone, your sacrum, your tailbone, everything that it has held on to, not only in your life.

But generation after generation after generation. Especially when it comes to Black Indigenous people of color, we have suffered so much reproductive violence and Our ancestors weren't always given the tools to recover, and they didn't always have the privilege of time and energy to recover, because they were in survival, literal survival situations, where they had to get up at the crack of dawn, go to sleep at the crack of dawn, and stay in the mindset that they're able to stay sane doing the same thing again the next day.

So they had to bury emotions. They had to bury traumas. They had to hold on for us. for their children. And this generation now, we have the power and the privilege to heal from all of these atrocities committed against us as black indigenous people of color. And so this is what Mexican traditional medicine brings to the table.

When I work on a body, I could feel and see what this person has gone through. I could see What emotional process that they're going through. They'll confirm to me afterwards. I saw my grandmother going through this and I'm like, yep, I saw the same thing. And this is how I knew how to hold you. This is why I knew the exact words to share with you at the perfect moment because this This interchange, this emotional, physical interchange is bigger than us.

This is ancestral. And when we bring our ancestors into this, it just, becomes so much deeper. 

[00:44:14] Loren: That's so powerful. And I, I really encourage anyone who is thinking about maybe incorporating this to check out Bankitsani's resources because there can be so much unlocked, I feel, when you start to connect.

[00:44:31] Panquetzani: Every year, I have a free womb care challenge for Black and Indigenous people of color. And A lot of the folks who joined the challenge have never rubbed and loved on their bellies. And just the abdominal spiral, the abdominal spiral is a technique where you just go into the skin and superficial fascia layer.

It's very gentle. You can do it anytime. And even that just very gentle, I literally gave him the most gentle massage. Even that unlocks so much. Some people are in tears. And they release so much, and they, they tell me that after I did this massage, I quit smoking. After I did this massage, I left my partner.

After I did this massage, I wasn't afraid of the dark. It's like, I don't know what you're doing, but you're doing something right because you see progress happening. And it's so unique to the person. 

[00:45:34] Loren: That's so interesting. That really is. I wonder, and again it goes to show how it's not just the womb you're working on, it's, it's so much more, especially the mind, and it sounds like the revelations people are having also are very similar to the ones that you had when you had your spiral.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Unlocking that and then being able to take that radical ness, that's amazing. I would love to go back to womb care and I'm wondering if you can help me describe what the consequences might be of a matriz caída and a dropped womb because we, you talked a little bit about sort of the, the structural physical side of things being a cause, but also the emotional side of things.

So what happens if you have a dropped womb? 

[00:46:34] Panquetzani: One of the biggest consequences of failing to guard your womb is the challenges to fertility. When you have a womb and it's in the perfect place, this is a recipe for fertility. And when it's dropped, you have stagnation, you have frialdad. Birth and life doesn't happen in this stagnation.

You need movement, you need flow. When you, when you think about water, stagnant water that becomes poison, water that flows, that's healing. And so the same thing goes for your uterus. You're having regular periods, you're having normal blood flow and warmth. Doing your massages, like all of this is a recipe for fertility.

One of the other, uh, symptoms of amatriz caída is, I mean, today they call it PMS. For us, we call it frialdad. Frialdad causes cramps. Frialdad causes slow period. It might go and stop. You know, start, stop. It causes tiredness. You're always cold and it's, it's, uh, Frieldad means coldness, I guess. And it's when your uterus is in a cold state, a stagnant state.

Frieldad is usually caused by a matriz caída. So if your womb is in a position that isn't optimal, then it gets cold. You'll notice that there's brown blood at the beginning and the end of your period, and that's blood that's sitting there. It isn't flowing normally and abundantly, steadily, like it should.

It's stopping, it's starting, there's old blood from the month before, like all of this is caused by frielda. Matriz caída Also causes back pain. Back pain is probably the number two thing that I see folks for. But it's not even their back. It's literally their uterus. You adjust their uterus, you close their hips and their back pain is gone.

I had a client who had chronic back pain their whole life and in one session, just one, it was 80 percent gone. 80 percent in one session, and this is a person who takes good care of themselves. They get weekly massages. They go to the chiropractor every week. She was like, damn, I wouldn't have spent all this money on my chiropractor had I, had I known about you and that you could do this.

She didn't even come to see me for back issues. She came to see me, um, to get pregnant, which she's pregnant right now. Amazing. Yeah. And so, foot pain, a lot of us don't associate foot pain with a matriz caída, pelvic floor pain, matriz caída, even soreness in your upper back, matriz caída. Bloating, they, uh, they call it like hormonal bloating, that's a matriz caída, too.

If you have everything functioning and flowing, then there should be minimal bloating when it comes time, you know, those couple weeks before your moon cycle. 

[00:50:03] Loren: Thank you for that. So there's so much opportunity to, these, these things that, you know, we, we kind of dismiss. as kind of just symptoms of just being a woman.

They can actually be related to the position of your womb. And I personally love the massage for this. Um, I've seen so many benefits for myself, but also my clients and students. So it's something to think about. 

[00:50:32] Panquetzani: For sure. One of the other things that I see a lot are pain and congestion in the legs or restless legs, like you lay down and you just feel like, like your legs are anxious.

You know, that's caused by a matriz caída, and yeah, and you massage yourself, and it goes away. A lot of my students, I teach them self massage, so a lot of them have told me, Yeah, I couldn't sleep, I felt so anxious, and then I gave myself a massage, and I just slept like a baby, you know. I love that. Yeah, that's amazing.

[00:51:06] Loren: Well, what about the postpartum side of things, because We've been talking about typical menstrual cycle and fertility and even pregnancy, but I know that you have a really big focus on the postpartum period and incorporating this kind of work into that. Can you talk about how it can support? The postpartum phase of a woman's life.

[00:51:31] Panquetzani: Yes, this is the biggest transition that we have as mothers, as birthers, is the transition from being Single, no children, to, I have a baby in my arms, WTF do I do now? And there's so many nuances that aren't talked about. This is why I'm writing a book on Mexican traditional medicine for postpartum. It's called La Cuarentena.

And it comes out this week. September 2024. I'm writing this book so that we could share what postpartum could be like versus talking about what it was like and how much we were harmed, how alone we felt, what we wish that we knew at the time, what we wish we could have done differently. There are so many horror stories about postpartum, like the suegra, the in law, you know, the partner shutting down, the physical recovery that we didn't anticipate, the baby with the colic that we didn't prepare for.

I mean, how do you prepare for that, really? Other than with tools and knowing, actually, babies could be most fussy on day 3 and day 20. And this is the plan. This is how to minimize the fussiness. And why is baby feeling this way? Here are the reasons why. And this is what you can do. Right? And so giving folks the tools, the information, and the stories.

I teach a lot through storytelling. I share my narratives with birthing my four babies. I share my grandmother's narrative with birthing some of her babies. My mother's narrative, my tia, like different family members. Getting this good, nourishing postpartum care and also sharing, yes, it's so hard. It's so freaking hard.

And there were things that nothing could prepare me for. But falling into this medicine made it hurt less. It made it warmer. Kept me sane. You know, we never know. We can't control anything about the birth. We can't control birth. We can plan all we want, but baby has their own plan. The universe has their plan.

The lineage that the baby carries, they have their own plan. We never know. And so, with traditional postpartum care, we're able to recover from any trauma, disappointment, exhaustion, physical trauma that happens. During the birth. And this is also a ritual that prepares you for parenthood. A lot of us are in survival mode.

Especially at this point. Especially if you had a difficult pregnancy. Imagine like, wanting to get pregnant, not getting pregnant, finally getting pregnant, then you feel like shit. Then you have the worst labor. And you know, stuff goes unexpectedly. And then you're postpartum. But you gotta care for another human now.

So. So when do you find the time to heal and to process? Well, this is what these rituals are in place for. They hold the birthing person the way they deserve to be held. If I am a microcosm of mother earth, and I, through the act of childbirth, I'm reflecting the earth and the universe, then I deserve to be venerated.

Like the earth, we see childbirth as a battle. And in this battle you could live, you could die. There's no guarantee. So when the postpartum person, when the birthing person survives this battle of childbirth and pregnancy, then it's a win. It is a celebration. And we don't celebrate by, you know, bringing Mariachis at the doorstep, being all loud.

we celebrate through quiet. Through nourishing meals, through nourishing teas, atoles that induce body milk, through sobadas that relax the nervous system and the really, really tired bones and tired muscles, overstretched tendons and ligaments, with traditional reboso bodywork that gently closes you every single day for 40 days, closes your hips so that you stay aligned, closes your everything, your head, your feet, all of your bones, all of your joints in the body are like squeezed, and you feel so comforted and held.

Even if the ritual is 20 minutes, that 20 minutes gives you life to go back into newbornhood and take care of your baby. I'm a little sleep. And so this is a physiological process. It's a physiological recovery, but it's also a spiritual experience where we carry our traditional worldview of this is what birth and postpartum should look like.

This is what the birthing person's body, this is the way that they should be honored. When we all learn this, then we're more able to hold the postpartum person. I've been in situations where there are postpartum people who they know and their partner knows how important it is to be venerated, but their family's like, well, I did it alone, so why can't you do it alone?

You're weak, you know? Or let me, I'm just gonna help with the baby. I'll just hold the baby. Not knowing that their scent is interfering with body feeding. Not knowing that you're interrupting a vital bonding process that lasts a lifetime. Just by holding the baby, knowing when you kiss someone else's newborn baby, you're putting that baby in danger.

They don't have, they're not born with a full active immune system yet. Right? They have to build that up and they build that through being with their birthing person. you know, and being exposed to the microbiome at home with the people who live there. And so I'm hoping that through this book, which is the first book on Mexican traditional medicine for postpartum.

So it's so important to our communities and it's so important to our people. I'm hoping that with this book, that we're not only educating the postpartum person and their partner and their children. But we're educating the tíos, the tías, the abuelas who've forgotten, the abuelos who've forgotten, the extended community who really need to be holding up a person when they're at their most volatile.

This is a volatile transition, and it's also one of the transitions that has the most impact on your parenting and your long term reproductive wellness.

[00:59:19] Loren:  I think there's so much to be said about everything that you shared, and it's what you said earlier, it's pouring back into your cup so that you can show up and really approaching postpartum.

Also, in an informed way, which I really appreciate because my work primarily focuses on fertility and preparing for pregnancy and helping women become empowered to make more informed decisions as they navigate. Uh, their fertility journey and conception journey, but also pregnancy as well. And it is about relinquishing control.

It's not necessarily about, you know, because if you do try to control things, it's going to put you in a very opposing energetic state. You're not going to get anywhere. It's going to really take you back and hold you back. But it's about approaching it from a place of, I know my body. I've established this.

relationship with my body. I know what I need. Here's what I can expect. Here's what I could possibly do when this comes up to just have a smoother experience and to feel more grounded, really. Yeah. So I think the work that you're doing though is so important because postpartum is like you said, it's a volatile time, really vulnerable time, but such an important time.

And There isn't a lot of support for postpartum women. And I think that, you know, with your resources, that can change a lot. So it can make those postpartum periods a lot more smooth than we've expect, sort of what we expect. Um, as far as like the stories that we hear and just wait till this happens and just wait till this happens.

And it's really approached from like a negative perspective. Yeah. But it can become more powerful. 

[01:01:12] Panquetzani: Yes, it is normalized. And it's normalized to do it alone. It's normalized to, for your labor to remain invisible. I'm supposed to be the same amount of productive when my whole life got flipped upside down and I'm trying to make sense of it, put the pieces back in a way that works for me.

yet I'm supposed to be the same amount of productive at work. It doesn't work that way, you know, and this is because our labor is invisible. There's the motherhood wage gap where after you have a child, you, you're less likely to be promoted. Some people get demoted because you have to work, you know, the, the birthing person will sometimes cut back hours or work on a different schedule or a different role at work, you know, but meanwhile, males who also have children, they actually get promoted because they're seen as trustworthy family men and responsible. 

So postpartum brings to the forefront a lot of the disparities between women and mothers and men in society. And when we don't start off with paying homage to the human who, who made genitals, who made bones, who made a nervous system, you know, in their womb, where we start off on that right foot.

Thank you for doing this. Here's how I'm going to thank you. Not just through words, but through actions. Then you're able to navigate this violence against motherhood. 

[01:02:57] Loren: You make really great points there. And yeah, that's a lot to unpack. We could almost have a whole conversation about that too. But I still appreciate that.

And again, it goes back to just postpartum, it really doesn't get the light that it should. And When we can start to really understand and support the women that do go through this and It really can change a lot. So and that you're you're doing the work. So thank you for doing that. Thank you Yeah, well if someone were considering Incorporating more ancestral medicine, you know like Mexican traditional medicine, where would you recommend that they begin?

[01:03:41] Panquetzani: For postpartum specific, you can go to indigimama. com slash book and when my book is available for presale, I'll go ahead and I'll send you the link. I'll also be sharing just postpartum healing in general when you join the indigimama.com/book You can go to indigimama. com to find me. You could find me across platforms at indigimama.

You could find me on Instagram at indigimama. And um, yeah, I have the womb care challenge. Keep an eye on that. The best thing is to sign up to my mailing list and I could give you the link Lauren, so you could add it to the, show notes so that folks can join. And I have a free gift. I don't know what it is yet, but I'll give you the link to that too.

Amazing. 

[01:04:35] Loren: Thank you so much. Those are so many resources you can start incorporating right away. 

[01:04:40] Panquetzani: I have so much free content for you on Instagram and on YouTube. If you want to do a womb massage after cesarean, if you want to learn how to tie a faha, Um, all, all just for free. My big thing is public education and bringing this medicine back to the people.

[01:05:07] Loren: Well, thank you for what you're doing. I think it's amazing and super important work and Thank you for your time here. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks for being here

Thank you so much for listening to the Innate Wisdom Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review and share the podcast with someone who you think might benefit. If you're new here, we can't recommend enough that you take advantage of my free resources, like the Get Pregnant Yesterday Checklist, Psycholiteracy Guide, and more.

And if you're trying to conceive now or in the near future, I invite you to join my pregnancy prep e course, Conscious Inception. Make sure to follow me on Instagram too, at innate underscore fertility, and consider joining my newsletter to receive exclusive content related to fertility and so much more.

A friendly reminder, the content shared on this podcast is for informational purposes only. I'm and should not be a substitute for the advice provided by your doctor or other health care professional. It is not intended to be, nor does it constitute health care or medical advice.