Denise: Yes, yes. That's very true. So yeah, from that place of receiving is where we drop in.
Hillary: Right. And it's difficult, I think, when you've been- Women that are of childbearing age right now, we're kind of raised in a society of 'try to live in a man's world'. They've kind of indoctrinated themselves into 'go, go, go'. And how very Yang lifestyle. And so, it almost seems foreign when you tell them like, "Hey, you need to slow down." And you are actually guiding this but you need to be a little softer about it. That might help you.
(14:00) Denise: And it's so interesting because of how this affects the relationship because we're talking about intimacy in a relationship as men whereas their Yang nature of like coming and fixing things and being that energy. This could be, we're talking about male-female relationships, but it's often in same-sex too. There's a dominant Yang person or a Yin person or however. It's not just in the heterosexual relationships, but in that Masculine Feminine Energy Dance, which we all do, that males oftentimes in my practice, specifically feel sort of impotent literally on what to do. Because the females are doing so much and they would like to do, but they don't know what to do. And their big job, their big moment is that to like do the ejaculations and so that they get right. And for them, they want to connect too and they want to have intimacy and so they can't fix it and then maybe they have this big pressure on this one moment and then they have, it's difficult for the men as well as the females.
Hillary: Do you see a lot of men in your practice?
Denise: I happen to see a lot of men in my practice.
Hillary: That's awesome.
Denise: Yeah, it is. And they are amazing and they really tell me so much. They really inform me, they really are open. And I'm pretty impressed with my male patients.
Hillary: Well, you know, it takes two to Tango, but I think that that kind of 'I'm going to do everything I can and then I don't want to bother my husband', until I absolutely have to model that. I see it happening sometimes as the males, they don't come for treatment as often as they should. I'm sure there's a lot of listeners out there wondering like how do they have that conversation in a tactful way to get their husband on board to come to something like acupuncture if it's foreign to them?
Denise: Yeah. I think, if they know they're going to have more intimacy with their wives.
Hillary: Yes. Okay.
Denise: If we're going to get more pleasure out of the whole experience, I bet a lot of men will be down. I mean, like, if that's gonna make their connection better and make their wife happier. I mean, men probably -- Well, yeah, that's what they're about, like taking care of the feminine. Male and male energy is taking care of the feminine energy. I think that, yeah, more intimacy, more connection. I think that's a way to win a man as opposed to(16:00)you might have to take these or that you have to do this. I think men want to have a baby. Most men, a lot of men want to conceive as well and they want their wives to be happy and they want to be connected.
Hillary: Yeah. For sure, but they just don't talk about it ad nauseam like we do.
Denise: That's for sure.
Hillary: Your book has all these amazing Daoist Taoist exercises, I should say, in there for lovemaking. What's a simple one you could share with our audience if they were, say going to practice and be like, "Hey, you'll get more of this perhaps if you go to the acupuncturist."
Denise: I'm going to talk about some really basic things right now. Because it's hard to explain like Microcosmic Orbit Breathing, really [line breaking] instruction reading the book for that. I think what happens with couples is just the simple things go by the way said. Like full body hugs. This idea of, in Taoism or actually, I use some tantra stuff too, where there's the Yab Yum practice where a female will sit in a male's lap and maybe they connect their energy centers with them. But boiling it down, I would ask the questions of, 'when's the last time you had a full body naked hug for a long time? And when's the last time you did eye gazing?' Just really looking at your partner in the eye is so intimate. It's just this idea of connecting energies and then in addition, 'when's the last time you made out?' Connecting the heart energies, the tongue energies. These things, it's just when people are trying to have a baby, it's like, "Okay, come on, let's get down to it." It's that intimacy of connection of deep hugs, deep kissing. And yes, there are lots of Daoist practices, but just breathing together, where we breathe, we just match each other's breath and we just sit there across from each other. Look in the eyes, you could even put a hand on the heart energies and just look at your(18:00) beloved and really look into their eyes. Sometimes, that's just very hard to do because we don't have a lot of time and it's hard to be really that intimate.
Hillary: Well, yeah, because fertility becomes that job on top of your other jobs and you're always giving to-do lists of what to do or at least this is what I observed in some of my patients and they're not slowing down. And that's why the show has a big emphasis on mindfulness. One of the huge reasons I wanted to have you on after I read your book was just what a great job you did of driving home that that's so important to be present. It's so often things, we get away from that. We get into these ruts and I think just looking at one another in the eye, it can bring up so much, but it's stuff that needs to rise to the surface.
I made my husband try the 3-minute hug, clothes on, not to be too TMI, but I said, "Hey, before you leave, we should start just hugging for three minutes." And it's funny because I don't think we make it more than 90 seconds without giggling or one of us saying something and it is like foreplay like you say in your book that is well before the action actually happens later. It's just kind of planting that seed, if you will, for later. And that's been really helpful. I think he really likes this stuff and reading this book.
Denise: I've gotten that from a lot of patients that are even trying to have a baby, that it's really reignited the passion in their relationship. Because there's a lot of great, even if you're not trying to conceive, there's so many great-- Just to bring back the passion for couples cause it's hard to keep it up. Ha, ha. All the time.
Hillary: Yeah, you're right.
(20:00) Denise: Yeah, it is. And there's a whole section in my book, Foreplay. Like this idea that it kind of begins in the morning because you do set the stage for what's going to happen. Women, we want connection, we want to be able to feel, it's not just like at that moment. Now we have to perform. It's really like, do we say really nice things to our partner? Do we text them something nice during the day? I mean, what's the communication all day? We're all so busy, sometimes it's hard to do that.
Hillary: Right. We take that for granted. I think that that's such an important part of the relationship to foster, to be good parents, to have that alive and well before the child gets here. Because man, you need that connection.
Denise: Absolutely.
Hillary: You need to be unified.
Denise: At its best.
Hillary: Once the baby comes, right? I'm wondering, 'cause you treat a lot of men because this is something that I've been thinking about for quite some time. They had the World Conference on Reproductive Endocrinology where they finally all in a consensus said like, "Oh yeah, this isn't just like a natural pattern that's happening, but men's sperm counts and their motility is falling and at an alarming rate." It was the first that it was this like, grim outlook for humans in terms of reproducing without something like IVF. What do you think about that? Because I know that there was-- I've actually had some male patients bring me the GQ article that was written about it where they were like, "Oh, now I'm listening cause it was in GQ." What's your opinion about why sperm rates are dropping so drastically across the planet?
Denise: I think that's such a good point. And on that note, I had a Reproductive Endocrinologist that was talking and he goes and he said, "Oh, yeah, one day it's going to be like you have sex for recreation. And then you go to the fertility doctor and have your baby." And I thought, "Wow, that's really, that's a sad commentary on our naturalness," so to speak. But I think that what's happening is that we're very out of sync. We have this huge technological broom[?] where everybody's on their cellphones and there's a cell phone in the pocket and we have a lot of environmental problems. I think that we're not even probably aware of the amount of pesticides and like what they have DDD in people's fat tissue and that has to play a role in sperm and eggs. Just the amount of environmental toxins that-- Even if it's not in this generation, we're in generations(22:00) before that it's hard for our bodies to get rid of. I think there's that plus this, you know, sort of in -- There must be some kind of stress level that's happening. But it's not just from the men from now. It's like what happened when they were conceived. Because I'm having all sorts of men right now with very low sperm counts.
Hillary: Right.
Denise: And that doctors don't know why.
Hillary: Right. This unexplained male infertility, I think, is becoming even bigger than unexplained female fertility.
Denise: Really unexplained low sperm, like really low sperm counts and taking all the tests, it's not genetic or we don't know enough about genetics right now to know because there may be are some genetic problems going on. But yeah, I think it's gotta be some type of environmental toxins, as what I'm thinking.
Hillary: Yeah. Have you ever listened to Doctor Zach Bush talks about pesticides and GMOs and how that's affecting fertility?
Denise: No, but I'm sure I would agree because it is and we're only getting worse, we're not getting any better. I wonder sometimes with women and maybe with men as well of hormone disruptors and how they play a role in male fertility as well. I mean, birth controls, how many years older? It's not that old, but women are peeing. We pee out all of our hormones and that goes into our environment somewhere. That urine goes somewhere.
Hillary: Right.
Denise: It's not-- I think it's in the water. I mean, I know--
Hillary: Right, we can't get it out of the water.
Denise: -- our water isn't tested for that. We don't, we'll test our product. We do, and in my city, they test for all sorts of things, pesticides --
Hillary: Right.
Denise: -- heavy metals, all these good things. But they don't test for hormones. And I wonder if I'm drinking tap water by mistake, I wonder, "Are there hormones in here? I don't know"
Hillary: Right. Or SSRIs or other things that affect fertility.
Denise: Correct. Yes, SSRIs, so many of these medications, I wonder what's in the water I'm drinking.
Hillary: Berkey Filters, if you don't have one,(24:00) grab one. That's what the Peace Corps uses.
Denise: Yeah, we have filters. We have filters, but I'll have to look. I'll have to keep that one in mind. I have a filter in my office and in one of my house, but still, you know?
Hillary: Do you think the stress aspect is what is keeping the libido low? Because I mean, I asked that in my questionnaires, and I asked if the male doesn't come. There's a part about like, tell me about your partner. That's almost always tracked when there's some fertility issues. I have to wonder if it was the chicken or the egg. When there's fertility problems, which came first?
Denise: Yeah, I'd say like 95% of my women check low libido. It's such an interesting thing for women because I have to inquire much more about what that means. Do they have low libido or is it really not enough time to be aroused because it takes like 20 to 45 minutes for a woman to become fully aroused where all her tissues engorge with blood and she's ready to have intercourse. I don't know that we have that kind of time because of stress, because stress, there's so much stress in life. It's like you come home, if a woman's working, it's like, I know when I come home and my mind is still thinking about things I have to do. It's not really in my body. I'm not feeling my sexy self. I'm not feeling like-- I have to unwind all that and get in the mood.
And it is. I think we have such a stressful communication and there's a thousand emails I have to look at. And we are going at such a fast pace, it's hard to slow down to get into our body. I do think stress plays a huge role. Then on that note, with males and with females too, like some of the SSRIs actually prevent men from ejaculating. It sometimes prevents women from having an orgasm. We have that level where we're taking stuff for our stress and then it's causing more problems. There's other solutions for that. But I mean, I don't take my patients off their SSRIs, but they're given so easy these days and I think now everyone is given one. (26:00)
I do think stress is a huge, huge problem in libido. Absolutely. It takes time. It takes nurturing. It takes quite. It takes feeling the body just getting touched. It's all those things were sensuousness, it's not just sex, it's just like being sensual with one another, feeling of the senses, cooking, smelling, touching, tasting. That's part of the dance of sexuality. People are so stressed out, they're forgetting about that.
Hillary: Well, don't you think it really comes down to presence though? I mean that's when you involve all of those, your five senses, you're in the moment, right? You're there. You're not answering your email in your head.
Denise: Right. Absolutely. And that's where you were talking about mindfulness. I think that's so important. It's learning how to be here now. As one of my mentor, like not mentors, but spiritual teacher, Ram Dass. His book, Be Here Now. There was a watch, it says, "Now, reminder."
Hillary: Right.
Denise: Oh, yeah. Like, cause my mind does it too. It goes right into the future and I'm worried and I'm like, "Oh no."
Hillary: Yeah, that future thinking. I think, I'm permanently recovering from that. I do. I do love Ram Dass though. I mean, I think, Polishing the Mirror was his greatest book yet.
Denise: I look at him, he's in a wheelchair and he is paralyzed and half of his body and he smiles. He looks you in the eye. I'm sure he has his thing, but I'm always inspired by people who in the face of obstacles and difficulty are able to really fully be present and really fully be there. Even with fertility or whatever is going on, reminder, for myself as well. Be in the moment, be in the moment, drop into the moment.
(28:00) Hillary: Yeah. He talks about that. About how humbling it was when he got sick and he said the people taking care of him and he felt he wasn't the man anymore. He was like, here, I thought I was enlightened. And now I'm down low. I just thought that was such a great part that anybody can relate to, especially with fertility because somewhere in our wiring, I think we get it. That this is the one thing we're supposed to do. When we can't do that, I think it colors everything else.
Denise: Yeah. It's like this feeling of being broken. 'Is there something wrong with me?' Or 'I can't do this thing I'm supposed to do.' I mean, I have women that are really having hard times with it. I'm so much compassionate for that. How do we find a way to enjoy our lives in the midst of struggle. In the midst when things don't go the way we'd like them to. In the midst when we're arguing with our partner, how do we drop into love? How do we remember what's really important? I have this great exercise. I have to share this because Kia Miller, who's a yoga teacher shared it with me and I think it was like Yogi Bhajan, the founder of Kundalini gave it to another Kundalini practitioner.
And she said, "When you're mad at your partner, you spread your legs, you go upside down and you'd hold hands upside down and you've seen what you're upset about." We get upset about so many things, myself included. What's really, really important is to return to love. It's so important to return to that energy of love, love of self, love of your partner. Love, the love energy that really dictates why we're here. I think what and why we want to have kids.
Hillary: Right. Yeah, I agree. I might try that one with my teenager. He'll be like, "What are you doing?" But you know, people don't like the emotion of anger. We're scared to sense and feel anger coming at us. If you can lighten it up a bit and still allow your anger, I think that's brilliant.
(30:00) Denise: Right. And Chinese medicine talks about that and like the wood element. That we're supposed to feel our emotions and obviously not be abusive with them but to feel them and it's okay to feel anger sometimes if that's the emotion. It's okay to feel all the emotions as long as we don't stay with them forever in a day.
Hillary: Right. The wood element is also important for feeling orgasm, right?
Denise: Yeah. Passion, absolutely.
Hillary: Yeah. So lots of babies are made via IVF now, but I love that you pointed out how one couple had to use donor sperm and then they kind of literally brought it into their own, took it in their own hands into that home because they wanted to have orgasms when they were trying to make this baby out of love.
Denise: There was an amazing same-sex couple that I interviewed. They were incredible. They just told me this story. I was trying to figure out about sexuality in same-sex couples and how it works there. They were like, "Oh, yeah, we had the most sex ever because this man would give us the sperm. He'd leave it for us. And then we put it in and then we knew that an orgasm afterwards is really, really important." We would go to each other one and that -- and they ended up doing IVF. But just the story, the journey of how this baby was made was so great. Yeah, that having an orgasm after a cervical insemination, was really potent for them. Yeah, it's just great. And then having an orgasm, it's a theory. Sometimes if we can, it's really wonderful, but it's not essential. One doesn't have to have one.
Hillary: Right. But it could help, right? 'Cause this is pretty powerful to get that sperm where it needs to go and you're happy at the end of it, even if it doesn't work.
(32:00) Denise: I think, I teach a lot of young women. I have a lot of young women in my practice. And a lot of women don't know even to talk about what kind of orgasm, like having an orgasm. Like one woman was having an orgasm just with a vibrator, but her partner with vaginal sex didn't give her an orgasm. And she was like so afraid. She thought there's something wrong with her. I was like, "Oh, no. A lot of women don't orgasm with vaginal intercourse. Sometimes they need a little extra clitoral stimulation and it's okay to ask your partner for that." Just the mention of all these words, people are looking at me. Just to have that dialogue where we're talking about the clitoris and the penis. I think it's like, "Yes, let's talk about these things because these are important. These are our body parts."
Hillary: Right. I think if you're going to be having sex, you should be able to talk about these things. Okay. Well, I know that we are coming to our place in time. But if you had one piece of advice for a couple that was out there trying to conceive, what would it be?
Denise: I always tell my patients like that and we don't know why this baby wants to come in or when this baby wants to come in. Sometimes your baby could be the future president, it could change the whole course of our country but it wants to be born at a certain time and it's this idea of the love coming together and trusting in the time. I think, timing becomes really scary for people. It's like you don't know when this child wants to come in and we have to do deep trust, we have to do deep love. That would be my advice. Deep trust, deep love.
Hillary: That's awesome. I think that's great. That reminder of we're not in control of time. Well, where can our listeners find you if they want to connect further?
Denise: You can go to my website, which is my name, https://www.denisewiesner.com/ And that's a good place to find me and find about the book. Yeah, that's a good place.
Hillary: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show and to educate our listeners about how to reclaim their intimacy. And for being so vulnerable in telling your story in the book. I think that that really helps the reader to get comfortable with what might be a highly uncomfortable subject for some.
Denise: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. I tried to put a little of me in there cause it's hard sometimes for all of us.
Hillary: Yeah, absolutely. It's a much-needed book. I think it's going to help a ton of couples out there. If you're listening, I highly recommend grabbing a copy of Conceiving With Love and reading a little in bed each night and sharing with your partner. I promise you and your partner will be pleasantly surprised about what comes up, pun intended.
If you want a free chapter, you can get a free chapter before you commit. You can do that if you go to the show notes for this podcast, which is ladypotions.com/fmradio/74 or simply search Conceiving with Love on our homepage at LadyPotions.com, that'll take you right to her home page as well. If you're out and about, you don't have anything to write down with, you know where to find it. You can also win a free copy of Denise's book if you follow me on Instagram @LadyPotions4U. You'll find details to come on, how to win a free book.
A huge thank you to all our listeners for giving us your greatest asset of your time and your attention. We truly hope this interview has peaked your interest on how to rekindle the fire. Thank you so much, Denise.
Denise: Thank you so much. You're doing great work.
Hillary: You too.
