Transcript: Christine Garvin 0:02 Hey everyone and welcome to this week’s episode of hormonally speaking, I am just so happy today to talk with my guests because I love talking about Yoni steaming in particular, we’ve had steamy chicken in the past. If you missed that episode, go check it out. But it is such a powerful tool. I think that is not talked about enough. First of all, when it comes to a whole bunch of things in the reproductive system. But there’s also you know, so many other elements to have energy healing that we’re going to get into with today’s guests. Because as we know, as whole people we need to hit up all of these different aspects physical, emotional, spiritual, etc. So super excited to talk to today’s guest who is Samantha Denae, and she is a certified holistic and feminine health practitioner, endometriosis advocate, educator and survivor. Her personal journey and experience with endometriosis has led her to the destination and purpose of a wound healer. As the owner of Samantha Denae LLC. Samantha provides spiritual healing services such as Yoni steaming, Reiki, spiritual massage cleanses and more to work towards the goal of unlearning, to learn and love self and your bloom. She also creates holistic products like and touch wound detox capsules, a special herbal blend suited for reproductive healing of stagnant blood flow and tissue in the uterine cavity to create a healthier period for self. Other herbal capsules for healing Yoni steam blends, and more. And Samantha spare time she educates high school students on period and reproductive reproductive health and how to advocate for themselves with doctors and family super important. Additionally, as a womb motivational speaker, Samantha provides her audience with a real life look at trauma and how it plays a role in your health and physical ailments. How to begin healing by correlating the physical and spiritual to learn how trauma plays the biggest role in your life. Simply she is your motivational guide to healing yourself and womb. Welcome, Samantha. Samantha Denae 2:09 Thank you for having me, Christina. I’m so excited to be here. Christine Garvin 2:12 Yeah, I mean, just reading your bio. I’m like you, I love everything that you do, and all the aspects that you bring in, because it is so important, right to sort of target all these different ways, including trauma. We talked about that a lot on the podcast, because I feel like that’s overlooked a lot when it comes to reproductive health. Right. Samantha Denae 2:33 Yeah, overlooked. Yeah, yeah. Christine Garvin 2:35 So tell me, you know, your story and sort of how you ended up doing this work that you do, because obviously, you’ve gone through your own experience dealing with reproductive issues. Samantha Denae 2:47 What’s the long journey Christine Garvin 2:50 about it? So I was diagnosed Samantha Denae 2:52 with endometriosis in 2014. Before my diagnosis, my periods to always be in really happy, they were about seven to eight days, I will always have to miss like, at least a day of school and work. cannot eat anything we always throw up like even just water I would throw up and was just really, really sick. And so in 2014, when I was diagnosed, it was it was a blessing in disguise. I had been prescribed codeine pills for for my period, and I wasn’t aware about narcotics and how to take them especially when they’re like, really heavy narcotics core. And so I was used to taking like 1600 milligrams of like ibuprofen for my period and just like a day, and so I took these codeine appeals and I took like six of them thinking it was gonna be okay, they were six milligrams. Okay, 36 milligrams. Let them for me. And the next day, I got up trying to go to work and go to class and almost fainted. And so I went back to the doctor, and the doctor who prescribed me the codeine pills where she wasn’t there. And so I saw another doctor and he asked me, he asked me a few questions once I told him about my period. And he asked me if my period is always debilitating every month, if I have issues with six and if I have issues with going to the bathroom, and I told him yes to all three, and he gave me a pamphlet and said, I think you have endometriosis. Christine Garvin 4:29 Wow. I’m impressed. Samantha Denae 4:32 And I had never heard of endometriosis before and I was like, okay, and he said, you know, you’re gonna have to have surgery in order to be diagnosed. You know, you can’t have a CAT scan or MRI. You can’t see it under under those. So you have to have surgery and I was getting ready to graduate. That’s it. Okay, I wait, because I wanted to walk across the stage because the recovery is about six to eight weeks. And once I started my big girl job, I had my surgery for I’ve coincidentally covariances and variances that were about to rupture. And they were like the same size as my uterus and my uterus was the size of an orange when it should have been the size of a limit because I’ve never been pregnant before. Right? Christine Garvin 5:17 How old were you at the time? At the time, I’m Samantha Denae 5:19 like, 24. Okay. And so, once I had my surgery for my ovarian cysts, they saw the endometriosis and diagnosed me with stage one. I tried a plethora of birth control pills. I tried Lupron depo, which for those of you who don’t know, it’s a chemotherapy treatment that they use for endometriosis. But it’s also a prostate cancer treatment that they give to men. So it’s pretty, it’s pretty rough. Christine Garvin 5:46 It doesn’t it it bottoms out your estrogen, right. Like it really suppresses it. Yeah. Samantha Denae 5:52 And if you’re not on hormonal replacement therapy, when you’re on the Lupron depo, it will see you to basically menopause. And so I went through menopause, quote, unquote, when I was 25, and it was rough. And about three years later, I went from stage one to stage four endometriosis. And my period started to become like 90 days for nine months out of the year. And so I was basically on my period all year. Christine Garvin 6:26 Super anemic, I’m sure because you can’t not be when you’re believing that much. Right? Samantha Denae 6:31 Super anemic. I will always try to go to the emergency rooms for like transfusions to see if I would need them because I was bleeding really heavy and all the time, right? But FYI, for you all, do not go to the emergency room for endometriosis, they are not trained to meet your doses, and they will not be able to help you. And you’re going to be really upset when you get there because they’re not going to know what to do. You’re going to know more about me treehouses in the emergency room doctors. And so I was at a loss, trying to figure out okay, like, how am I supposed to live because I’m having my period, basically all year, nobody can figure out how to at least get it to decrease in the number. I had Dr. Progesterone treatments, those weren’t helping. They were making me bleed heavier, different birth control treatments, those weren’t working. I feel like I tried just about all the birth control treatments with the exception of the IUD and like the diaphragm, like, right, none of those, but nothing was working for me. And my doctor, she, she told me I could get an ablation. But she said you get an ablation, your period is going to come back within eight years, because even though it’s burning the uterine lining, for whatever reason, it still your period is still going to come back and wanted to get a hysterectomy because at that point, I was exhausted. I can imagine. She was very adamant about not wanting to do it, because I’m so young and anything can happen. But she would do it because she knew what I was going through. And every time I would get to, to pre op, I would counsel in law, I guess my spirit was just telling me I should just wait. something’s gonna happen. I don’t know. And my doctor suggested that I try holistic medicine. Christine Garvin 8:24 Okay, I’m amazed by this doctor, I just have to say the fact that she was like, supportive and all these directions that not everybody finds a doctor like that. Yeah, Samantha Denae 8:33 actually, her name is Dr. Tamika See, she’s out in Stockbridge, Georgia, very supportive and very supportive of holistic medicine. And I was very surprised. But she said, You know, we’ve tried just about everything. I don’t know what else to do. So she’s like, we have nothing to lose. If you try holistic medicine. And if it doesn’t work, then we can try something else. And so I got off of birth control. And the day that I got off birth control, I also gave up meat. And I gave up dairy, which is, which was a big problem, especially with having endometriosis is a big problem. And I started to put myself on the only thing regimen. And within the next month of me getting my period. I didn’t bleed throughout that time before it was time for my period. And when it was time for my period, five days, I didn’t cramp. I didn’t bleed heavy. Christine Garvin 9:33 Wow. You’re like, I’ve never had a period like this before. Samantha Denae 9:36 The people in the commercial so wonderful. And like you can just do anything you want to do and just live. Yeah, I was outside. I was running errands. Christine Garvin 9:50 Like I was living my life. I completely Samantha Denae 9:53 really forgot that I was on my period and I was amazed at like how fast Christine Garvin 9:58 it’s incredibly fast. Yeah, Yeah, so Samantha Denae 10:01 the fact that it could happen because I’ve never had a period like that before. I’ve never had a period where I didn’t cramp and I didn’t bleed heavy. And I was in my bed, you know, every hour every two hours for me, but it showed me that it’s possible to work. Yep. And from there, I kept up with no meat and dairy. So we’re putting myself on a Yoni steam schedule. And I started in taking more herbs and the Yoni steam gland that I put together is actually the blend that is in my detox capsules. Here, people will take the capsule more than they will Yoni steam because either they don’t know how to use it. Or they don’t know about Yoni steaming, and they’re skeptical. So they’re not going to really try it. But everybody can take Christine Garvin 10:52 capsule. Yeah, everybody’s used to take a Samantha Denae 10:56 pill for like a year, I kind of just tested it out as a Yoni steam gland. And then I switched over to capsules just to see and I had my third laparoscopic procedure at the end of 2020. And my doctor saw no endometriosis tissue, I had tissue and my fallopian tubes, my uterus, my colon and my kidneys. And my bladder. She didn’t see any tissue. Wow. Now I can actually conceive, wow, whenever the spirit is ready for me to be there, yeah, I can, you can see, my periods are still five days, I don’t cramp. Unless I ate something, you know, and that wasn’t good. I might have fallen to a craving that I know I didn’t have. But outside of that, like I, as I rest, because I’ve really been intentional about trying to rest at least for the first couple of days in my period. And I’m and I sleep a lot too slowly during my period. So I try not to I try to rest. But if, if in the event, I can’t, because I have clients that I have to give services to, I still can get up and go give the services and be just fine. Christine Garvin 12:13 That’s an incredible story. And first of all, to that last point you just made, I think that’s really important for women to hear that, you know, even if you do have more energy, you know, because you’ve been healing your body and and you have more energy during your period than you did in the past. It doesn’t mean you need to like go go go during this time, right? It’s really is a time to go inward. Really kind of take care of yourself. It’s the body’s natural detox, right, and just kind of supporting yourself during that time. And going against the grain sort of what the world is telling you to do, which is to go all the time, you know? Yeah, yeah, it’s really Samantha Denae 12:52 important. And I find once you get in the habit of making at least those few days during your period, your designated rest time, not only are you going to look forward to it, because you know, at least I’m going to sleep at this time during the during the month, especially if you’re really busy during during those other days during the month. Also getting to really love on your womb, I think of my womb as a separate entity now getting letting her wrist because throughout the month, because I’m so busy going, going going and I’m doing energetic work, and I’m doing creative work. She’s used a lot throughout the month, even though I’m not on my period and even throughout the menstrual cycle itself. With all that comes within the different phases that your body goes through, like during ovulation and through your luteal phase. Your body still needs to rest in your womb, it’s always working. So that’s our time to raise too. And I feel like she deserves it. Christine Garvin 13:54 100% I Samantha Denae 13:57 give her the respect of resting during my time and I don’t cramp when I’m when I’m sitting down. It’s when I start to move, put on clothes, and I have to go outside because she knows I’m getting ready to go somewhere. And I’m not just getting up to like walk into the kitchen and get some water or going to the bathroom. Like she can tell the difference. And she’ll start to tense up a little bit and she’s like, Christine Garvin 14:23 we should like knock. Samantha Denae 14:27 Now what are we doing getting ready to go somewhere? Where are we going? How long are we going to be there because I’m ready to lay down already and we have a house. If you start to think about your womb like that becomes a lot easier to not only connect to your womb, but also give her the respect and have the accountability to do the things that’s going to help her thrive because a lot of time and we don’t want to accountability and we eat things that we shouldn’t have that it’s going to be a detriment To her, and to our periods, and menstrual cycle as a whole. And we don’t really like to take accountability for anything, we had a reproductive issue, we kind of always put the blame on that. And it is the reproductive issue, but at the same time, what did we do too, because we know we shouldn’t have such an such, or we shouldn’t be doing XYZ during this time. Christine Garvin 15:25 Right? Well, and that’s really sort of I know, it’s hard when, you know, I’ve certainly worked with women, and you were in this place, too, for many, many years, right of going through all this pain and, and really just being almost like angry, you know, I know women that are angry at the reproductive system, and I understand it, you know, but at the same time, it’s a much more empowering place to be to know that the choices that you make, impact, your, you know, your menstrual cycle, that it’s not just this thing that’s happening to you or your body being against you, because I think that’s what a lot of people can fall into, like, my body just hates me or my, you know, my uterus hates me. And it’s, it’s like, that’s not really an empowered place to be, right? Because it’s like, how can you get better if this is just sort of happening to you versus like, you have a role in it. And it’s not to get into like a blame and shame mode, but just, you know, understanding that you do have the power to shift things. And I mean, as you showcase like pretty quickly, right from the extreme that you were at, with bleeding, like 90 days at a time, to one month after doing these things. It just, I mean, your body was like we’re ready to heal. Samantha Denae 16:39 Yes, I felt like my wall was telling me for a while to get off the birth control. And I feel like my body is one of those bodies where I can take medication for like a week or so and it’ll work. After that. It’s like my adapted to it. And so it’s not going to work anymore. But I was very nervous and anxious to get off of birth control. Because my period before I started, the birth control was 10 times worse than the 90 day period that I was having. And the 90 day period was bad because I couldn’t walk I was walking around with a cane, I put myself on barriers for like two months. Because I couldn’t keep food down everything I eat, I would throw up. I was like, really, really sick. And but I was really contemplating on staying on the birth control, because I did not want to go back to the period before that, because it was so much worse. But yeah, I think he’s when it comes to the anger part of our bodies. I feel like we should sit in there. But we shouldn’t sit in it too long. Because I was angry. And I was in my uterus for a long time. And I was asking like, what did I do? Did I do something in the past like to deserve? Right, right? You question? Yeah. Like what happened? Because nobody else around me has a period like this. Nobody else that I know has endometriosis? I don’t I’ve never heard of it before. So you start to question and you do get angry. And it’s a it’s an important, it’s an important emotion to sit in. But it’s important to not feel guilty, because that’s where the trauma comes in. And then that’s what starts to play on your womb, because then you start to feel guilty for having it. Because you don’t know how to heal it. Or how to at least manage it so that you can have some kind of life. And then you feel guilty with what comes with it. Like you can’t hang out with your friends. You can’t do like regular normal activity, Christine Garvin 18:45 especially in your 20s. Right. I mean, it’s really hard and your 20s Yeah, Samantha Denae 18:49 exactly. You know, like, and then you have people who don’t understand because they don’t live it. You know, you make plans with people at the beginning of the day. And then when it’s time for the plans all of a sudden a flare up. Because Can you mean you can’t move you can’t they, they’re upset because I made plans. But now the plans are going through. And they were looking forward to it, but you were looking forward to it. So there’s a lot of emotions that come with having reproductive issues. Sit in it, but don’t stay in it. Because the energy that comes with being angry is something that sticks. And then that’s another trauma that you got to work through. Yeah. Christine Garvin 19:29 Yep. Yeah. Samantha Denae 19:30 It takes a lot to not be angry, especially angry at your own body for not doing what you want it to do. Christine Garvin 19:36 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that you put it so beautifully because, you know, we certainly have to be in our emotions and not try and push them down. But the goal is ultimately to process them so they don’t get stuck in our body. Right? Because otherwise Yeah, it just perpetuates upon itself those traumas and and then it’s really hard to get better really when you’re you get stuck in that place for sure. Can you talk about so when first of all, how did you find out about your Yoni steaming? Was that something that your doctor told you about? Or you were just researching? And then how did you kind of figure out which herbs to use? Samantha Denae 20:16 Um, so no, my doctor didn’t tell me about Yoni steaming i I feel like I was led to people who are into holistic medicine and into holistic care. And so there’s this woman by the name of Imani people. She’s known as the healer, but she gave me a reading and she was the one who told me that I needed to get off birth control and stop eating dairy and change my diet and everything. And she sent me to another woman named Imani who is an herbalist. And she gave me like a bunch of teas to try that will be helpful for my period. And then she kind of talked about Yoni steaming, but not really in depth. And so I kind of did my own research. When it came to Yoni steaming after I heard about it. It’s a rabbit hole to go down to. You’re learning about holistic medicine like this look. It’s very overwhelming. But if you’re interested in it enough, is a pleasant rabbit hole to go down. So I did a lot of research. And there’s a woman she’s my mentor. Now her name is LaShawn. She has a Yoni steaming. She has a Yoni steaming place here in Atlanta, and she gave me my first Yonis thing. And from there I was very much intrigued about all practice of Yoni steaming because I had heard of Yoni steaming before but people call them hip baths or sitz bath or something. Right? So I’ve never put together that those were the same thing, right? Christine Garvin 21:56 I don’t think I have ever thought that way. Yeah, Samantha Denae 21:59 the reason but I now that I practice Yoni steaming, now I can tell why I never correlated the two because when people refer to them as like hip baths or sitz baths, I don’t feel like they dive into the spiritual practice. Just manages steaming. Steaming with a purpose. Yoni Steaming is made to be with the purpose and once I started once I got my first year on this thing, and I saw the process and just like how it goes, I pretty much my mom you only seem at home is like got a pint and Christine Garvin 22:38 yeah, the basic basics Samantha Denae 22:41 are over the pot for like 15 minutes. That’s how I’ve always done it. She told me we have enemy drills, it’s not just being for longer than 15 minutes or 15 minutes, grab a little skirt or blanket and to keep the theme in. But the more I learned about Yoni steaming was the more I learned about herbs because they come hand in hand and so I just started to educate myself on herbs and like what they’re used for I have like a notebook now I have a book that I bought from Amazon and it has like all the herbs in there. And really, it was just my spirit picking the herbs for Jani spaming and what I will find at the herb stores I’ll start with that and then when when I get home I will just pick just what I thought should go in the blend and they’re like oh, we’ll just leave me there so Christine Garvin 23:34 all witchy goodness Samantha Denae 23:37 you just worked out very pleasant to my Yoni and to my own Yeah, I try not to do too many strong herbs too strong herbs and then a few herbs that are pleasant if I’m going to do like herbs Christine Garvin 23:57 can you give examples of like what strong herbs would be versus more kind herbs are pleasant. Samantha Denae 24:03 Don’t chai is a strong or Okay, stand along or you can take that by yourself and it’ll work man. I think Chase berries are strong or I think dandelion root is a pretty strong or Calamy raspberry I put it into the middle huh? But at the same time it’s pleasant. So we use either or I think passionflower is very pleasant room. I to put rose in everything because it has the highest vibration of any flower. So I love rose. Anything I wear rose oil now as my scent. Christine Garvin 24:45 It’s so funny. Me too. I was telling somebody recently like, I remember when I was young, my grandmother had rose, you know, whatever perfume and I just thought of it as honestly as like this old person. Like oh one thing I mean First of all, it was probably from like, Avon or something like that. So it wasn’t necessarily the highest quality stuff. But you know, it’s so funny just as I’ve gotten older, you know, just especially in the past few years I love rose like it’s just, yeah, it’s such a heart sent to me, you know? Yeah, Samantha Denae 25:19 I’m the same way I used to didn’t like the smell of roses. Yeah, yeah. I don’t know used to make me sad. I a little bit. Like I love I love the scent of roses. I can smell rose a mile away. My love’s past me wearing rose, medically know energetically, it really lifts your spirits. It makes you feel like so it makes me feel super happy once I started smelling roses, and I love roses. I keep them in my house. Christine Garvin 25:54 You got one behind you, right? Yeah. Samantha Denae 25:59 I keep the real one in my kitchen. And on my altar. I tried to keep I try to buy myself flowers like every two to three weeks for similar practice that I started when I started Yoni steaming and doing my wound healing and everything. That was a practice that I started to do. hours, hours, so give them to myself. Christine Garvin 26:22 Yeah, I think that’s so important. Right? There’s self love rituals, becoming part of this right and giving to your own body. Our bodies respond really well to that. Right. So instead of like, I don’t say not worrying about somebody else doing it for you. But you know, if you don’t have someone else doing it for you, and even if you do have somebody else doing it for you, it’s still good to do for yourself. Yeah, yeah. So when you first started steaming, how often did you do it? Samantha Denae 26:51 I did 10 days a month. Okay. And do you kind of Christine Garvin 26:55 skip days? Samantha Denae 26:57 Yes, sometimes I will skip days, sometimes I will do like three in the week and then take the week of my period that just take the whole week even though my periods only five days a week, just the rest. Break it up in in the months before in the weeks before my period. So that does come. Yeah, not heavy. I’m not cramping. I feel like we’ve had a lot of time to connect within the Yoni steaming process. Because when I seem I meditate, and I do a lot of meditations during my steaming. That way. I tell people don’t try not to be on your phone when you steam, because that’s your wounds time to tell you. Figures and everything that is going wrong and that you need to be working on. And that why you’re scrolling on your phone on social media, why you didn’t know on the pie. That’s not the only thing. They’re working part time. Christine Garvin 27:59 So true. And, you know, anytime that we can actually set aside to not be on screens is a good thing in general for our health. It’s like we need bigger breaks. So so you’re not supposed to steam while you’re on your period. Right? Yeah, yeah. Because it’s like, it’s, uh, you just want to like, let everything Samantha Denae 28:21 be it’s already a detox. Your period is already detoxing, and the only thing is a detox as well. So that’s double detoxing, and you are intense. Yeah, your period is already enough. Christine Garvin 28:33 Mm hmm. Yep. Let it be enough. Yeah, let that Samantha Denae 28:37 be enough. And you know, you’re using herbs in the herbs are strong. Yeah. And that steaming and letting those herbs inside your uterine cavity while your uterine cavity is trying to push out. All of that is then having backed up for the month. Hmm. Christine Garvin 28:57 Yeah. Not a good idea. Do you still steam as often now at this point? Samantha Denae 29:04 Yeah, I do. Yeah, yeah. So I only have service clients out of a spa in Atlanta. up fresh and so there when I’m in between clients, so before my clients are seeing when I’m there, and then I have not seen days at home. Christine Garvin 29:21 That’s great, because especially with something like endometriosis. I imagine you want to keep up with it. Right? Because, I mean, obviously, it’s an you know, that’s not classified autoimmune disorder yet, but it is something that will ascend. Yeah, essentially. Samantha Denae 29:38 I could come back to this far away. I want to keep this energy with this body as long as I can, because a lot of times when you have endometriosis and the laparoscopic procedure, the stem the sounds of endometriosis. Come back with Then like six months to a year, and that’s no time to feel normal, or no time to have like a manageable life that you can really enjoy. Because you have to get past the being tired for all those years of dealing with the endometriosis, and now you’re feeling good and trying to get your energy back and it’s like the moment you start getting your energy back, then you start feeling the endometriosis symptoms start to come back. Christine Garvin 30:23 Yeah. And that you have to go through surgery in order to even feel temporarily better, right? I mean, surgery is so intense on the body, Samantha Denae 30:30 very tense. They don’t they really downplay that. When surgery, they really downplay how, how traumatic it can be. And the recovery, the recovery is not easy, Christine Garvin 30:43 not easy. I know. So I had a fibroid removed. It was my first surgery ever. And even, you know, well, I’ll just say what happened to me. So they unknowingly burned me in three places in my intestines During that surgery. So I ended up with sepsis. Two weeks later, I lost half my colon, I lost eight inches of small intestine, I had a temporary ostomy for about six and a half months. So it was traumatic, to say the least. But but one of the things that happened was, you know, the two weeks after the surgery, you know, they they tried to say, oh, you know, you bounce back pretty fast from myomectomy is you know, right. And I kept just thinking, Oh, my body is like, slow to recover and all these things and what a disservice that they did and not saying, Hey, if you’re not, you know, like, if basically these are what things should look like. And you know, yes, it may take longer to get better. And if you’re just kind of continuing to not get better. Yeah, the hospital. Yeah, yeah. And I went I went to the premiere. I never say the name of it, but the premier laparoscopic gynecological surgery center in the southeast to get this done. Yeah. So yeah, so anyways, and yeah, first surgery ever led me to three more surgeries because I had two emergency ones. And then one where I reversed the ostomy. But yeah, I always tell women now like be very in tune with your body post surgery a it’s probably gonna take a lot longer, like give yourself more downtime than the two weeks or three weeks sometimes, especially with laparoscopic surgeries that they’re they recommend they’re like, oh, it’s not as long, you know, easily. I mean, just because they don’t cut you open doesn’t mean that everything that they’re doing in there doesn’t completely throw your body off. Samantha Denae 32:44 You know, it’ll tell you the recovery is two to four weeks. It’s really like six days. You can’t exactly barely breathe in the first two weeks. Yep. You. You try to sit in trust sitting up and trying to breathe at the same time. Christine Garvin 32:59 Right, right. Because yeah, even with laparoscopic surgeries, it impacts your abdomen too, right? So it’s like it’s your abdomen is so sore and in pain all the time. So like you said, just like sitting up, you’re like, oh my god, you know? And yeah, they really downplay it Samantha Denae 33:18 do not feel and I find I feel like in my experience, the more you have surgery, the harder the recovery becomes. Yeah, yep. Every time. Yeah, is every time the recovery gets a little bit harder surgery Christine Garvin 33:33 and you have more scar tissue and just you know, all of these things, right? So, I mean, the gift that you are giving to people, you know, sharing the story and obviously working with women with Yoni Steaming is so powerful, right? Because it’s like this massive tool that keeps keeps you out of surgery, right? I mean, Samantha Denae 33:53 you guys, research Yoni steaming. I know, people have their ideas about it, or research it because it can really be helpful and it can really be a helpful way for you to become in tune with your body and know when your body’s telling you something that’s wrong. Christine Garvin 34:12 100% Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So since I brought up having a fibroid myself, and a lot of people that listen to the podcasts have, you know, dealt with fibroids? And I mean, they say 80% of women will have a fibroid by the time they’re 50 You know, there’s some is Yoni steaming. Do you feel like that’s good for fibroids too? Samantha Denae 34:30 Yes, the only thing is very good for fibroids. Um, it helps to this theme and the herbs helped to shrink your fibroids. So the more you do it and can make it more of a practice for yourself, the better chance you have of shrinking naturally. The fibroids you don’t have to have surgery because I know a lot of people are really afraid of surgery but specifically that surgery a lot of people seem to be afraid to have so if you want to try your hand and shrinking your fibers naturally, I suggest you only stay me. And I suggest not eating eating dairy. Dairy causes inflammation. And that is what that is what the reproductive diseases are feeding off of, especially when you have like fibroids and endometriosis. That’s like candy. When you stop eating dairy and put yourself on a Yoni steam regimen, I would suggest doing that and naturally shrinking your fibroids and seeing like how much better your body feels. Seeing how much season seeing a difference in your period, because you’ll see that you’ll start to see the difference. You won’t bleed as heavy because I know you have fibroids and bleed really, really heavy. A lot of times when you have five boys on the outside and you have like the little the good, kind of like the good pouch. Mm hmm. That’s inflammation will go away. If you stop eating food, if you stop eating foods that causes inflammation. That will Yoni steaming, you shrink the virus and your gut will shrink at the same time. Christine Garvin 36:09 Yeah. All that comes together. Yeah. Yeah. 100% I think that’s so important. And it’s a good reminder, honestly, because I had been steaming for a while. I can’t remember if that was pre fibroid, it’s probably post and I got out of the, you know, you just kind of whatever get out of the rotation of things. And I’m like, this is a great conversation to get me back into it. Because, you know, the thing about fibroids is they often come back, I mean, most of the time they come back unless you get to the root cause of why you have them in the first place. Right. And, and I do I do all the things to keep them at bay for sure. But I feel like Yoni Steaming is such a powerful way. And also like you talk we’ve talked about the sort of spiritual connection. And I think, you know, there’s a lot of women out there that really struggle to connect to their womb, right and struggle to connect to their vulva. You know, and just, like, don’t necessarily want to look at it don’t want to, like, get into the area at all, you know. And so we’re, we’re going around kind of uneducated, about this super powerful part of our body, right? The like, master of our creation, essentially, you know, and so I think, Yoni Steaming is such a good way if maybe you felt uncomfortable with the area, you know, with your vulva to like, start to befriend it a little bit more. Samantha Denae 37:42 Yeah, because you need to need to know her. Know your Jani, you need to know your womb. And I do feel like young steaming can be a good gateway into learning your Yoni like I know sometimes, especially if you’ve been through a trauma with, with sexual with your sexual health. It is difficult to want to look at her and touch her. But I promise you, it’s gonna be the most empowering thing and most empowering experience you can have. Because you, you’ll know what you like, you know what you don’t like, you will know when something you definitely will really know when something’s wrong, we always can look at her and touch her. Because when you interact with people, and you interact with people, and you don’t know, you know what they have going on, energetically or physically, mentally, any of those things. If you can look and live, you’re comfortable with looking and touching her and if something were to go wrong, you’re going to be the first person to sweat out you’re going to be able to sweat it out quick because your body’s gonna be your body’s gonna be so in tune to tell you that something’s wrong. Yeah. It’s really, really important. I know some notes can be really, really uncomfortable. You should start with like, I think you should do like meditations that are surrounding your Yoni and grab a mirror. And it doesn’t have to be a big mirror a small mirror, or you don’t have to look at yourself. Just look at her. And focus on her getting to know what she looks like getting ready to love on her and touch her and embrace her. Because, honestly, you should be able to pick yours out of a lineup. Christine Garvin 39:32 Hmm. I like that. I haven’t ever thought about that before. You should know most of us can’t. Samantha Denae 39:40 If you see her, yeah. You know that. That’s how that’s how strong your connection needs to be with your womb and you’re young. Yeah. Christine Garvin 39:51 Oh my god. That’s that’s really powerful. I think that’s that’s so true. I mean, I think about you know, the way that my body in general signals mean Really quickly now when anything’s off, because I’ve spent a lot of time working on my body and my health, you know, and I know some people were like, well, you’re just so sensitive, you know, to everything. And I’m like, It’s not that it’s I’m actually listening. And in tune now, right? So many of us, unfortunately, and I get why, why we sort of are disconnected for the million reasons of our culture and everything you know, but it really gives us the signals way ahead of it needing to get crazy signals that you can’t deny anymore, Samantha Denae 40:38 that it’s true, your body tells you, your body tells you a lot of times and a lot of ways before it burns down. And once your body breaks down, and she says I’m done, it’s gonna be nothing you can do about it, but break down with it. She didn’t told you a million times when I was wrong. The ego. And so what I mean when we when we need to learn how to balance the ego of ourselves versus our own, because I want our US that is vibrating at higher frequencies. Because we have ego, we’re just vibrating lower, because we want to listen to the ego and we want with ego once and not listening to her. And that’s what we got to change. Yeah, Christine Garvin 41:17 absolutely. Wow. So I know that we, you mentioned in your bio, that you work with high schoolers in your free time on this. Can you talk a little bit about that process? Samantha Denae 41:28 Yes. So in the Atlanta area, I go to different high schools. It’s really just me calling the school and asking, you know, I’m with the endometrial. I’m on the advisory board for the endometriosis National Foundation. So I work as a part of their Empower project as the educator. So it’s really me calling the schools seeing who will let me come in and teach a class. And so when I do teach a class, I talk about endometriosis, very in depth, I talk about period care in general and biologically what that means to have a period because a lot of times, they don’t know, and I know they don’t teach that in high school or in school in general. Talk to them about like the differences and organic pads versus paths that have like toxic products and chemicals. And I talked to them about like the difference between pads and tampons and their diet and what they need to eat. Because a lot of times kids eat snacks all day. And they don’t care about what they think their bodies but I tell them you know what you eat especially right before your period has a really big effect on how your period is going to be. So change that. For the week before your period comes. I try to write about like so and perfumes and like how that has an effect on your body and how they can throw off your pH balance. But I also tell them about my personal story. So then that way, it’s not like some random person coming into their school that they don’t know, trying to teach them about a subject that they will care about. Yes, they. Yeah, they Christine Garvin 43:03 care about 100%. Yeah. Samantha Denae 43:06 So telling them my story on really helps. And that’s when I asked a lot of questions. I tell the students, the boys specifically, if you want to stay in the class, and learn you’re free to I don’t tell them what it’s about, before I start, I let them sit through the first five minutes, I don’t know, see through the first five minutes. If you want to see it for the rest, then you can you can see it. If not, you can get out you can go go to the gym with the rest of it. But I do have some that will stay. And they ask questions to and I figured this because they know somebody? Really? With Christine Garvin 43:43 Yeah, yeah. Oh, and how like, I mean, how wonderful is that? Because the more that our boys know, the more that our men will know. And the more that you know, not only can they help in situations, you know that where they recognize this happening, but like the empathy that you’re creating in them, right? Because our society has really lacked empathy around women’s reproductive issues for all of time. Samantha Denae 44:12 Exactly. And I think it’s really important for them to know that like, it’s by its by its bio, the base, they should understand how a period works. 100% understand that, because a lot of times when when we get our periods, our parents will tell us, you know, it’s how you wear a pad or a tampon, this is what happens. But now you can get pregnant in and you need to watch that. So they need to know further at the bases. They need to understand that the reasons periods happen and that they can now me you can pregnant. Yeah. Yes, empathy wise. I think I think we sort of downplay how evil motional boys can be efficient topic, and I think they are, they can be more sensitive if they know, because we just did do spirits to you have it once a month is, you know, really not that bad, you know? So few days, you know, we dumb it down to it being like, nothing. I mean, in all actuality it Christine Garvin 45:22 should be right. Right? Samantha Denae 45:25 Should be every month, you have a pleasant period and you’re not seeking you’re not feeling you know, at your worst and can’t do anything. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. That’s not normal. Right? And so we need to start building a better view around what a theory is and what it can be. And not just leave it at. We got a bad period. Christine Garvin 45:45 Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It’s such, I mean, that’s such incredible work that you’re doing overall, but I’m just really inspired around the work with teaching kids because the I mean, it’s incredible. I mean, and I think it’s so true. Like, we I don’t know, we just believe things about what kids know and don’t know and what there’ll be receptive to what they won’t be receptive to, but it’s like you have to try and, and maybe not all kids are going to be into wanting to learn about it, but a lot more are going to, then you probably think and this is literally, you know, particularly with the girls that you’re teaching, like, you are setting them up at an age where they can make some real differences in the rest of their reproductive life, right. And not have to deal with the crazy amount of issues that so many women, you know, that are in their 20s 30s and 40s deal with and even 50s You know, so crazy, cool, amazing work that you’re doing. Samantha Denae 46:52 It’s my favorite part, because I just remember being a teenager, and like sitting in class during my period, and nobody here he was like, my, everybody knew that I was on my period, because I’m always sick during my period. Oh, wow, that’s no fun, you know, for everybody in the school to know, like, Oh, she’s on her period, because Yeah, always. But it’s also no fun to like, have nobody give you any answers, or any something to make it better or like a why? There’s a lot of times we need to know the why and nobody has a y. Right, right. Really, at least 10% better when we know the why. Because then you could try to figure something out. Yeah. So I figure you know, more teenagers start to at least hear the word endometriosis, then it will lead to diagnosis happening earlier way earlier, giving you 10 years to get a diagnosis. And usually by the time you get your diagnosis is because you’re trying to have a baby, right, you’re pregnant, and now you try to figure out why you can’t get pregnant and when people find out is a little too late by them, because the endometriosis is done to battle the job system for for you to naturally try to have a baby. So then you got to do IVF. And that comes with a host of other emotional problems. And that’s a whole nother world and round. So the goal is for people to get earlier diagnosis and feeling like you have a bad period. So that’s what I heard for like a good 12 years. Yeah, well, Christine Garvin 48:27 and it’s interesting that you make that point that a lot of women don’t find out until they’re trying to get pregnant, because unfortunately, our healthcare system doesn’t really care too much about the reproductive system until, you know, we’re trying to get pregnant because we so much of our healthcare system believes that’s kind of the only point of the uterus and the womb and all of that, you know, it’s just pregnancy and it’s like, we spend the majority of our life for the most part, most of us not pregnant. The, the I mean, we are learning more and more every day, how much our womb impacts every other part of our body. You know, so it’s just yeah, it drives me crazy that it’s like suddenly the only care when once you’re trying to get pregnant, you know, and so, that’s so much what needs to change in this education for younger people. That’s, you know, what’s gonna do it really, because they’re gonna go in and be like, I’m pretty sure I have endometriosis and the doctors gonna be like, what, Mitra? Samantha Denae 49:25 That’s what we want. Yeah, yeah. We already know before the doctor knows you can say no, not demand. Yep. Advocate for yourself. And that’s what you got to advocate for themselves. Yep. Christine Garvin 49:39 Absolutely. This has been an amazing conversation. I just I’m so amazed by the work that you’re doing. I think it’s so incredible. And I come to Atlanta, usually two, three times a year, so I’m totally gonna come 100% Yeah, I was like, after we get out, I’m gonna get all the information but it’s super excited so anybody else who is visiting Atlanta should go check you out to let people know how they can be in contact with you. Samantha Denae 50:06 Um, my website is Samantha denae.com You spell my last name d n EY. Also the same on Instagram if you search Samantha name or the endo educator, I’ll pop up. Okay make up the endo educator and the same for Facebook and search Samantha Denae. You are the endo educator. I will pop up my my email is the same like Samantha Donabe lo*****@gm***.com Okay. Follow me on Instagram and you have questions or Tik Tok? Send me a DM I’m not one of those people that will not respond I will respond to your to your message and try to help as much as I can. If you want to book a console, I do own consoles where their One on One consoles. We talked about 45 minutes and we talk in depth about your womb health and your trauma and your triggers and I gave you a few techniques on how to start healing and working through those so you can start really diving into your wound filtering. Christine Garvin 51:01 Nice. Perfect, so wonderful. Thank you so much for giving your time today and sharing everything with us. It’s been just amazing. I’m so excited for everybody to hear this episode. Samantha Denae 51:13 Thank you so much. Christine Garvin 51:15 Absolutely. Okay you guys I will see you next time. Transcribed by https://otter.ai |