Teaching Fertility Awareness To Your Daughters (Episode 542)

Full Transcript: Episode 542

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: This is the Fertility Friday Podcast, episode number 542.

Today I’m sharing a brand new FAMM Practitioner Series. I’m sharing my interview with Marisa. And at the time that we’re recording this interview, we are in the final months of our FAMM program together. So we’ve had quite a bit of time together. And in today’s interview, Marisa shares her journey discovering fertility awareness. You get a sense of how transformational discovering fertility awareness was in her personal life and how it inspired her to really shift what she was doing and focus on this work with her clients in a new way.

And what I found with these episodes that I’ve been recording recently with our practitioners is I’ve just found it fascinating to listen to how they discovered fertility awareness, what their experiences were, how transformational it was. And it always reminds me of how few women really have access to this knowledge and information in a timely manner. I think that when you do find fertility awareness and you jump into the rabbit holes and you read the books and you listen to podcasts like mine, then you can get to the point where you start to think that this is everyday knowledge, that this is something that most people actually know about. But when you really reflect on it, think about your own personal life, your friends, the people that you work with — you really realize that this knowledge is not mainstream. Most women have no idea.

And especially for women’s health professionals, as you listen, this is important to remember: even if your clients share that they have some level of knowledge with fertility awareness charting, most of them have very little, if any. And even the ones that do chart their cycles a little bit on the side, maybe use a charting app, their knowledge is very likely to be quite limited. So what this means for you is that there’s a huge opportunity to educate your clients, empower them, and help them to achieve their goals — whatever they may be, whether they’re trying to conceive, whether they have had struggles and side effects on hormonal birth control and they’re looking for a way out that’s highly effective, non-hormonal, and has no side effects, or whether they’re just looking to understand what’s happening with their bodies and their hormones.

Before we jump into today’s episode, I want to take a moment to share a little bit about our guest Marisa. Marisa Shearer is an alternative menstrual health therapist that fuses the skills of fertility awareness charting, abdominal therapy, vaginal steaming, and menstrual cycle awareness to support and empower mothers and daughters in overcoming period challenges, as well as achieving their fertility goals. Marisa came to this work through the journey of healing her own period pain after several years on the pill and wanting a different outcome for her two daughters. From her experience growing up in Zambia and living in Turks and Caicos and the UK, along the way she has picked up an abundant basket of skills which she weaves into her work with clients both online and in her treatment rooms in Hampshire, UK, as well as during frequent visits to her homeland Zambia to run workshops. Marisa’s passion is working with young girls moving through the stages of menarche to equip them with the tools of body literacy and self-care practices to navigate a world of empowered menstruating.

So without further ado, let’s go ahead and jump into today’s episode.

And I’m excited to be here today with Marisa Shearer. Marisa has been a member of our FAMM program — as we are recording this, we’re a few months out from completion, but it’s incredible how fast the time has gone. I feel like I always say that. Nevertheless, welcome to the show, Marisa.

Marisa Shearer: Thank you very much. Happy to be here.

Lisa: Happy to have you. And I get to ask my all-time favorite question that I think I’ve asked almost all of our practitioner guests in the series. Let us know how old were you when you had your first period, and I’d love for you to take us through just your own experience with menstruation and all the things in between, and essentially what led you to want to dive into fertility awareness at this stage.

Marisa: Yeah, so my period started when I was 11, and I was living in Zambia at the time, and the whole topic of periods was pretty taboo. Yeah, I didn’t really feel like it was a celebrated event, and they became pretty painful quite quickly, and you know, disruptive to life — had to quit the swim team because I wasn’t confident with using tampons. And I ended up going on the pill when I was 16. It wasn’t just for painful periods, it was for contraception as well. And I ended up going on it for about seven years. I’d left home, I’d gone to England to boarding school, and felt like it was a period of time where I really was in a thick fog and lost myself — was quite depressed. And I found out afterwards that it was the pill, but at the time had no idea. Most people that I knew in Zambia just went on the pill and didn’t question it, and it was just what was done. There was no talk about fertility awareness. I didn’t even know that that was a thing. I certainly wasn’t taught it from my mom — she probably just didn’t have the skills to pass on to me. Yeah, I came off the pill in my early 20s, and that’s when all the problems that hadn’t been resolved kind of flared up, and I was on codeine-based painkillers at one point just to cope with the pain. And thankfully at the time Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer came into my life with Red School and taught me about the Four Seasons, and that just blew my mind. I had no idea that periods didn’t have to be painful and they didn’t have to be taboo, and I wasn’t like a man — I didn’t have the same energy as a man every single day. And that very much set me on my path of where I am today. And there’s lots of things that happened in between — having my two daughters, two very different births — and now being a mother, approaching that whole menarche phase and figuring out how to support my daughter and wanting to offer her a different experience. So, I’ll stop there and let you jump back in.

Lisa: Well, thank you for sharing that with us. I mean, your experience — it’s really interesting. I always love to be part of these conversations, because here you are, experiencing the most common side effect on birth control, which is depression. I even remember being surprised when I discovered that that was actually the most common side effect, and yet you’re kind of observing your peers, your friends who are also on the pill, and you kind of feel like I’m the only one who’s going through this. And ultimately we don’t even know. So, share with us then — obviously there was a big turning point for you to discover Alexandra and Sjanie’s work. Of course, I’ve had them on the podcast at least on two separate occasions, possibly more, and they were actually guest speakers together in FAMM this year, which was fantastic. So maybe share with us how your journey shifted once you discovered their work.

Marisa: Yeah, so they really were angels that came in. And I ended up revisiting their work actually almost 20 years later when I was preparing for my daughter’s menarche. And they have a brilliant course called Mothering Your Daughter Through Menarche, which I did, and then discovered their work and ended up training a couple of years ago on their mentality leadership program training. But it was, I suppose, just backtracking to when I discovered their work — I started implementing changes in how I showed up to my period and taking rest. And actually, you know, telling my boss, “Actually, I’m on my period and I’m in pain.” And he was like, “Oh, of course, sweetheart, go home.” And I thought, oh my God, is it that easy? Why haven’t I been doing that before? And enjoyed a hot bath and laying on the sofa just staring out at the garden. And it was also at that time that I discovered yoga and trained as a yoga teacher and started learning about embodiment — so really being in my body and feeling the sensations, which was complete contrast to what I feel the pill was, which was numbing out, ignoring, taking painkillers, and just pushing through, soldiering on.

And then I had my daughters — both births, I mentioned. I had an emergency caesarean with my first daughter and spent sort of the next five and a half years between when I had my next one recovering from that process and learning about what maybe had gone wrong with the pregnancy. And then after I’d had my second daughter, I developed a cyst on my left ovary. It was actually there in the scan with the second daughter, and it became apparent that it was a problem — I was getting pain during ovulation. And the doctors were suggesting surgery to remove it, like laparoscopic surgery. And I didn’t want to go that route. My mother had lost both her uterus and her ovaries to a hysterectomy in her 30s, which I was at that point in my life. And my mother’s mother had also had a hysterectomy — she had cancer of the uterus. So I was worried about this story of the lineage repeating, and I knew enough about psychology and root causes of things to know that surgery was not going to heal this, and not wanting to pass it on to my daughter.

So I went searching and discovered vaginal steaming. I got my husband — I was living in the Caribbean at the time — and asked him to build me a sauna because I’d seen what they looked like, and ordered these herbs from Steamy Chick, who is in California. And the first experience of the steam was just so powerful. And I cried. And it just felt like this thing that had been missing in my life — the women that had come before and what they knew and what I hadn’t received through my lineage. And yeah, so long story short, I started steaming, trained in that, and then later trained in abdominal therapy as well. So all of these tools together. I still have the cyst, I’m still working with it, but I see it more as a gift now. And at the same time, went from having a period of like 10 days long with big heavy clots to five days with very little clots and minimal pain. So there’s a whole collection of things that have opened up just from that first seed of: periods don’t have to be painful, and if they are, then there’s something wrong.

Lisa: You did mention — and I think what you said was so powerful — wanting to break that generational cycle, having had not only your mother previously experienced a hysterectomy, but your grandmother also. And here you are at a similar age as your mother, potentially facing that similar outcome. So I think it’s also really inspirational that you sought to break that cycle and have a different outcome for yourself, and then hope for your daughters as well. Having two daughters — maybe share how this information and your personal experience has shaped your relationship with your daughters. I think a lot of women, either who have daughters or nieces or who might have daughters in the future, are often thinking about: how do I change this for the next generation?

Marisa: Yeah. I mean, when I did the course from Red School on mothering your daughter through menarche, it really hadn’t occurred to me that my experience of my menarche played a big role in my experience of having periods. Like I said, it hadn’t been celebrated. My mother didn’t know — she was an Irish Catholic immigrant living in the UK. There was no talk of empowering women. And my aunt, who’s a similar age as my mom, she thought she was bleeding to death when her period started. Nobody had told her about it. So I think how it’s changed me is — well, my mom was not having her periods when I was growing up because she’d had a hysterectomy. So I wasn’t exposed to periods. And so the way I’ve mothered my daughters is just being really open about: you know, mommy’s on her period, and this is what she’s doing to support herself. This is the food that I’m eating. This is how I’m relaxing myself and nourishing myself. And they see the sauna there, and it’s very much normalized for them as something that women can do.

And I think also my reasoning for wanting to do the FAMM program was that in all my training, I hadn’t yet delved into the whole thing of understanding hormones and understanding fertility. I had gone on the pill for seven years and knew that it was not something I wanted to be on again. I did try again in my 20s to go back on the pill, and I couldn’t even finish one packet. That’s when I knew this stuff was bad for me. And I’d been doing a mixture of the rhythm method and guesswork up until when I started your training. And now I have so much more awareness of it. And when I look at this training and I look at what sex ed has been like at school — my daughter is 13 now — she came to me and was like, “Mommy, we’re going to learn how to put a condom on.” And then they were taught about different pills they could take — the combined, the mini, and the emergency pill. And I was like, “What about fertility awareness?” And she said, “No, there’s no mention of that.” And it’s made me realize: young girls need to learn that. They need to learn about their body and be empowered with that knowledge so that they can choose whether or not to go on it. For me, it was more like you’re going on it out of fear and lack of knowledge. And I also was petrified because I didn’t really know when I could get pregnant — for all I knew it was any day, even on my period.

And even with the women that have come to me for my practicum through the FAMM program, a few of them have been wanting to do it so that they can teach their daughters. So I just think it’s so wonderful that mothers are resourcing themselves with that knowledge, and if they don’t have that dialogue with their daughter, that they know that they can come to somebody like me who could teach their daughter and empower her with that knowledge.

Lisa: One quick question — you mentioned that you tried to go back on the pill and then you realized you couldn’t within a month. What happened?

Marisa: It was a long while ago, but what I do remember was just crying — just uncontrollably crying. And my boyfriend at the time, who is now my husband, he just was like, “What’s wrong with you?” And I explained, and I think it’s the pill. And he was just like, “You have to stop. Just stop taking it. You don’t need to put that in your body.” And thank God he was like that and was prepared to support me in not going on it. Because I knew many women whose partners would not do that.

Lisa: What a similar experience — of it changing your emotions, and then it being the partner who’s like, “Wait a minute.” So you’re not alone in that. I think what I’ve fortunately discovered over the years of teaching fertility awareness and working with women is that often men are actually quite supportive, especially when they realize it could be affecting your health or your emotions. I think for a lot of men — a lot of humans in general — they don’t know. Most of us didn’t know that the pill could have that kind of effect on us.

Something else that you mentioned — I think this is somewhat controversial, but it’s okay — your daughter’s class were taught sex education, and when you mentioned that they were taught about how to use condoms and then they were taught about all the different pills they could take, I feel like there’s a part of me that just got my backup around that. Because first of all, this is medication. And really, if we’re teaching children about medications, probably should be a pharmacist — because a pharmacist is the person who is well aware of the side effects, the contraindications, the nutritional deficiencies that are generated by these medications. For me, I understand that that’s the standard. But I just felt the need to touch on that because I would anticipate that nowhere in that education were they told about any of the side effects.

Marisa: No, definitely not. And I mean, I certainly wasn’t. I was marched off to the doctor’s office to be given my prescription for the pill, and there was no mention. I remember there being a big piece of paper that I read, and part of me was like, oh my goodness, this is quite scary. But it was all big words, and I just thought, well, surely it’s fine because he’s a doctor and the family respects him and all these other women that I know and love are on it as well. And it wasn’t until years later — one of the documentaries that I love and tell lots of people about is The Business of Birth Control. I run film nights where I bring women together and show them that documentary and give them an opportunity to talk about what’s raised in it. And I love that I had started doing the FAMM program and had watched this documentary many times. And every time I watch it I learn something new. So many people don’t know — it’s not common knowledge. I didn’t know until I had to read The Fifth Vital Sign as part of our pre-work that all the things that the pill can do, like shrinking vulvar tissue and shrinking ovaries. I didn’t know any of that. It was more the emotional things that I was aware of, because that was what was apparent.

Lisa: We’re just at a very interesting time, when it has become so commonplace. I’ve talked about it many times — women as you listen right now may have found themselves in a situation where they’ve been asked to list out their medications and they’re literally on the pill, but it just doesn’t even occur to them that that’s a medication, and they just don’t even write it down. So I’m still talking about it, but just the thought of having my 13-year-old daughter in a class where they’re just talking about the pill — “oh, you can go on this one, you can go on that one, you can go on this one” — as if it’s ice cream or something, when every year in the United States alone anywhere from about 250 to 350 women die from using the pill as directed. And I don’t say that as a scare tactic; it’s just statistical fact. I’ve interviewed so many women on the show over the years who had serious side effects and could have died. And then the number of women I’ve spoken to who’ve had potential blood clotting issues.

So it’s even more important for us to educate our daughters. And again, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to have a 13-year-old daughter and she will definitely never choose to take birth control. But I feel that the best case scenario is when we have that informed consent and that we are at least aware of some of those potential contraindications — like having migraine headaches, or if you do have certain pain in certain areas of your body, that you know it could be related to a blood clot or something like that, just so that if you did have a serious complication, you’d be more likely to live to tell the tale.

Marisa: It irritated me too. You’ve been thinking about it.

Lisa: And there’s one other thing I’ll just mention — these days, other than condoms, I don’t think there’s even a conversation anymore about other non-hormonal methods like the diaphragm or the cervical cap that could be used in conjunction with condoms and a spermicide. Again, not that everyone’s going to make that decision, but I think there is certainly a growing bias where it’s kind of pill-only, and even condoms alone aren’t considered adequate — you are also meant to be using the pill with condoms. And any of the other non-hormonal alternatives aren’t necessarily discussed. So were any of those mentioned in your daughter’s sex ed?

Marisa: No, definitely not. There was no mention of the diaphragm or anything else like that. It was literally condoms and the pill, and that was it.

Lisa: So share with us then — prior to jumping into FAMM, you had expanded your education in a number of areas. You mentioned the abdominal therapy, steaming, and obviously the courses you took with Red School. What made that shift and what inspired you to jump into fertility awareness, and how has it changed your perspective?

Marisa: So I had been listening to your podcast — I don’t know how I got onto it, but I had been listening to it, and I was preparing to make a big move with my family, having lived in the Caribbean for nine years, moving back to the UK. I just had this feeling that this course was going to be the best way to really support myself and ground myself in this transition. I was essentially going to be starting all over again and very much looking to launch my career here in the UK. I was already working online and had a following in Zambia and the Caribbean, but I knew that I was coming to a new place, and so I was looking forward to the business support that would be there. But also, there were women that I had worked with where I always felt like I was lacking in my knowledge of how to properly understand what was going on with their bodies. I had always read different books and tried to understand the whole menstrual cycle, estrogen and progesterone, and I would just get lost in all the graphs. And this course has just been wonderful in making me accountable and showing up every single week. And yeah, it’s been challenging because there’s been a lot going on with the move and settling everybody in and setting up a home, but it’s just been so refreshing to come on the call every week and watch people’s progression and be exposed to the different women’s charts and different stories.

And I feel like — I’m 41 now — and I’ve just learned so much about my body that I had no idea. I’ve also been figuring out some of the things that went wrong in my own body — just like with pregnancy and deficiencies with what I was eating. Going from being really, really exhausted and having very low iron to now knowing what I need to eat and how to support myself has just been amazing. I think I’ve gotten stuff from the course that I didn’t really know was coming, but I just knew it was going to be the container that I needed to hold myself and really dive fully down this path of wanting to help women — and be clear about where I want to help as well. The course has really helped me focus on what I’m passionate about and what is my story, which is the mothers and daughters and helping to heal that lineage.

Lisa: One of the questions I get when I’m speaking to prospective practitioners who are thinking about the program is: I’m busy, how am I supposed to fit this in? So maybe share a little bit about your experience.

Marisa: Absolutely. It was only when I was in it that I realized, oh no, I’m going to be doing this throughout the summer holidays — that really wasn’t a good idea. But you know, I made it work. And there was the time difference as well, which was a challenge — your 12:30 is my 5:30, and that’s bang in the middle of school pickups and dinner. So sometimes my camera would have to be off, sometimes I would have to catch a replay. But the family just knew that this was what was happening, and everybody supported me. And I was just loving the content and learning so much, and it just was a no-brainer. I just knew that this was something that I needed to hold me accountable, because why else was I going to sit with the books and try to understand things? And even if I did that, I wouldn’t have the insight that you share from your years of practice. And being with other practitioners working around the world was really insightful.

Lisa: I appreciate you for sharing that. As women, we just make things happen. Within the FAMM structure, we do try to allow a lot of freedom and flexibility — all the calls are recorded, and we have the online training portal, so you’re able to watch things in your own time. And I’m really impressed, Marisa, because at the end of the day you were on most of the calls — you were always there, even in the midst of it all. It just shows that if something is important to you, you’ll make it happen.

Marisa: Absolutely. I just wish I’d come across this when I was younger, because there have been times where I’ve thought, my goodness, my brain doesn’t work the same way it did when I was in my 20s — this would have been so much easier.

Lisa: As we start wrapping up — for any potential FAMM practitioners who are listening to this episode and just trying to get the skinny on what’s going on in this program, what would you want them to know if they’re thinking about potentially jumping in?

Marisa: I think just go for it, really. It’s such a fantastic program. It’s so well held, and there really is the flexibility to work around your own schedule. You know, I’ve been driving and listening to you in the car, and listening to you while I’m cooking and doing the laundry. It’s a wonderful resource. I think for adult learning, you consider all the different ways that people learn, whether it’s visual or listening to it again and again. And for me personally, it’s changed my practice so much in the way I look at how I can support women. I have generally just seen women once or for a follow-up, but this program really gives a beautiful structure to see a woman for a series of sessions over several months, and I feel that way you can really bring about a lot of change. So I would say definitely go for it — not only for your own practice, but also because, for myself, I’ve benefited just in terms of knowing my body more and holding me accountable to implement the changes that I’ve been resisting, because there was actually someone going, “So, how’s it going?” That accountability piece is huge.

Lisa: And another question — given our conversation, we’ve been talking a lot about how this can affect teens, and we’ve talked a little bit about how this may affect your daughters and the way you’ve interacted with them. Do you want to share what’s on the horizon, how you think you might incorporate everything that you’ve learned into some future plans?

Marisa: Well, apart from going into the schools and changing the system, I am working at the moment on something that will be a bit like a period camp — where girls can come and have several sessions and learn all of these different tools that I have under my belt, so that they can approach their menarche and moving forward into the next few years of their cycling with the means to address whatever comes up, and be empowered with the knowledge that they don’t have to go on the pill to fix their acne or fix their period pain. I’m quite excited about those programs, which will probably be in person, and then perhaps also online as well.

Lisa: Well, I got to say, one of my favorite things is to sit down and watch what our practitioners do — what they do in the world — because ultimately that’s how we change things. Anyone who starts listening to this podcast and is interested in fertility awareness, and goes down that experience of learning — there’s generally this sentiment of: how can nobody have taught me this? It’s like that initial anger and frustration, that kind of fire of, you know, this is not right. And then eventually, hopefully, we channel that energy into something productive. I think we change things by first changing ourselves, making sure that we are educated, and then finding ways to educate those around us who want to know. And I think that’s how we make the difference.

And Marisa, for anybody who is listening and wants to know a little bit more about you, please share where they can find you.

Marisa: Yeah, thank you. So I have a website, which is marisashearer.com. I’m sure you’ll put a link to that. And then I’m also on Instagram — it’s @marisa.shearer. Those are the best two places to find me.

Lisa: Great — yes, we will definitely put those in the show notes page. And I just want to thank you so much. This has been just such a lovely conversation. I love getting a chance to talk more to our practitioners. I always learn more, even though we’ve been together for months and months. I always get a much deeper sense of your story, and so I just really appreciate you sharing that today. I’m sure that you’ve inspired many with everything we’ve talked about.

Marisa: Thank you, Lisa. And thank you for being you and doing all the wonderful work that you do. I really appreciate you.

Lisa: Oh, thank you. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it with a friend. You’ll find the show notes page for today’s episode over at fertilityfriday.com/542.