128. Breaking Free from the Medical Model: Dr. Nathan Riley on the Sacredness of Birth (Part 1)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Hello and welcome to the Radiant Mission Podcast.
My name is Rebecca Toomey andwe are on a mission to encourage
and inspire you as you'renavigating through your life and
with your relationship withChrist.
We have been in a series onbeing countercultural and, as
listeners of this show will know, we love talking about birth
and, of course, god's design forbirth.
And our guest today has areally unique story and has

(00:55):
broken free from the medicalmodel when it comes to birth.
Dr Nathan Riley is a boardcertified OBGYN who's left the
medical industrial complex andreally due to his
disillusionment with thestandard of care that was
provided there within thatconventional maternity care
model.
And this was hard because goingwith the flow of the

(01:15):
hospital-based practices wasproviding him financial security
but, on the other hand,standing in his truth and from
having sat with over a thousandbirths and connecting with women
and their families, thisprovided him a lifestyle with
more alignment with his ownjourney as a father and
deepening his connection withhis wife, caring for people in
the way that he had anticipatedlong before stepping into

(01:38):
practice.
So Dr Riley now focuses histime on upholding the
traditional practice ofmidwifery.
He supports midwives as acollaborative physician for
midwives of all varieties inover 20 states, and he is an
advocate for home birth andstill attends births for those
in need.
He boasts a C-section rate ofless than 5%, which is one of

(02:00):
the best in the US, and hismission is to uphold midwifery
as the art that it is and tohonor birth as a sacred process
and the transition intoparenthood as a spiritual
transformation.
So Dr Riley is focused onempowering women to have their
babies on their own terms, usingnature as our guide, and he

(02:20):
also helps fathers embrace theopportunity to connect with
birth and their partners throughpregnancy and birth,
encouraging them to go deeperversus distancing themselves
from the stigmatized but magicalrite of passage.
Dr Riley is a father of two,the second of whom was born at
home, and he is proudly marriedto his high school sweetheart.
In his spare time, he walks inthe woods, makes dad jokes,

(02:44):
paints and drinks coffee withamazing people.
You can find Nathan onInstagram at NathanRileyOBGYN,
or there are some otherresources I'm going to post in
the show notes for this for hisother Instagram accounts, like
Born Free Method.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
But Nathan slash, dr Riley, whatever you want me to
call you Nathan's good yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Thank you for joining me.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, it's my pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
That was a great, greatintroduction.
I could have written it myself,I think.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
I think you might have had a little hand in it.
Now I'm going to give ouraudience the caveat that today's
episode is a little bitdifferent than usual.
Usually we jump into things andjust kind of start talking, but
it sounds to me, from what I'veseen on Instagram, that you

(03:37):
have been on a lot of podcastsfor interviews with a lot of
folks that agree with a lot ofwhat you're saying, or all of it
, and something that youspecifically requested for the
first six months of 2025 is thatyou would only agree to come on
a podcast if the person orpeople didn't agree with
everything that you had to say,and it was more of kind of a
healthy debate type of format.

(03:59):
Is that accurate?
An accurate summary?

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, you're actually the first person to take me up
on it.
I had a number of people insort of a um, a very um, what's
the word?
Kind of an uncanny sort of, uh,suspicious way.
Uh, want to bump our my nextinterviews up about five months.
So, uh, you know, I Iappreciate the opportunity

(04:25):
always to come on and to reallyand to really be objective, I
guess, and and humble when wespeak about some of these topics
, because I certainly don't haveall the answers and and,
frankly, the reason I posed thatchallenge to people which I
thought would be like the peoplewith real conventional OBGYN

(04:46):
podcasts would bring me out andjust want to like, harangue me.
I would be OK with it, but thereason is that there is a real
lack of curiosity and and Ireally don't know, like I really
don't have any answers, and themore I'm doing this, the less
answers are really coming to me.
More questions I'm generating,less answers are really coming
to me, more questions I'mgenerating.
So I would love for people toappreciate that.

(05:07):
Somebody who says that they'respeaking the truth I don't mean
the capital t truth likesomething that you experience
deep in prayer or in your sleepand you're like whoa, that was a
weird thing.
I can't prove it, but ithappened.
Um, I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about, like thedata shows and the science shows
, it's like you've lost your way, because we really can't ever

(05:29):
know the ultimate truth of thisstuff, this stuff, especially
when we're talking aboutchildbirth.
So so, let's let it rock, let'sjust like, let's just riff for
a while and have some fun withthis, and I will be happy to say
I don't know if you can push meinto a corner that that forces
my hand.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, absolutely.
I told you before we startedthat there is a lot that I do
agree with you on.
There are a lot of things thatI see your posts and I'm like,
yes, yes, that resonates, I getit.
I also really appreciate whatyou're trying to do, what your
mission is now that you've leftthe system.
So it's interesting because you, five or 10 years ago, I'm sure

(06:13):
we would have had a lot more todisagree on, and it sounds like
you want to have thoseconversations.
But I bet you all the OBGYNsare scared because they know
that they don't know.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Obgyns are scared because they know that they
don't know.
No, that's actually a reallygreat place to start, which is
if somebody is going tochallenge me.
It's hard.
This is the reason that theseconversations don't happen.
I'm not advertising somethingthat is completely goofy, that
is not in direct experienceright for many women who've had

(06:46):
babies.
I'm saying that there'sprobably a way of going about
this that does not beg for moreintervention, more
pharmaceuticals and moreinterruption.
That's all that I'm.
My whole jam comes down to thisand, frankly, whenever people do
go into a sort of debate forum,we don't really have those

(07:07):
anymore.
I kind of wish we did, but theywould say well, you know, it's
on me or you or whoever to proveI'm using air quotes for those
listening to prove to me thatPitocin is bad or that
circumcision is bad, whatever,induction of labor is bad and,
by the way, none of these thingsare categorically bad or good.

(07:28):
It's for this individual who'shere.
This is not the thing that theywant, nor do I think it's
actually the thing that'sbeneficial.
But the point is that if you'regoing to say, if you're going
to put that pressure on me todemonstrate that Pitocin is
patently bad for all women goingthrough childbirth, that's the
wrong question.

(07:48):
The burden of evidence is on theperson who wants to deviate
from the natural order of things.
And this gets into thespirituality piece, or even the
religious piece, which I thinkwe in the medical community have
become so far removed from that.
We have stopped even listeningto our own internal voice.
Or you know, like again, what Iwas saying is like something

(08:11):
that came to you, that likemoment, that epiphany that
happened to you, like it's okayto listen to that voice, even if
the doctors and the nurses andwhatever don't agree with it or
the data doesn't support it.
That's you, like I want to knowthat, and that ultimately
becomes the most real thing inthe world.
So the burden of evidence is onthe person who wishes to

(08:32):
deviate from nature.
And we've deviated so far fromnature that I don't even think
we understand properly how basicbiology works.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, I understand what you're saying.
I would like to let's dig intothe spiritual aspect a little
bit.
You know that this is aChristian podcast.
I get the sense from what I seeand again, this is me making an
assumption right based on notknowing that you and I are both
talking about spirituality, butin a different way.

(09:03):
Perhaps you know when I referto and this is where I need you
to correct me if I'm wrong butwhen I refer to having a
spiritual experience, I'm havingan experience with Yahweh God,
the God of the Bible.
When you're talking abouthaving a spiritual experience,
who is your spiritual experiencewith?

Speaker 2 (09:23):
That's a really great question and I really
appreciate the question.
And you notice my eyes aredeviating left and right because
I don't know if I have a reallygood answer for that.
I guess it's probably important.
You know, if I'm going to slamthe medical doctors and whatnot,
I have to relate to them aswell.

(09:44):
You know, you get into thismotif of understanding the human
experience and you cut it upinto its constituent parts and
you decide what you like andwhat you don't like, and that
doesn't leave a lot of room forthe mystery.
And when I was growing up as ayoung child, I was never brought
to church.
I was never really.

(10:05):
It wasn't never a part of ourholiday experience, like around
Christmas.
It was something that my motherand father had was a Lutheran.
My mother specifically had areal hard time remaining in her

(10:34):
faith, you know, staying withher faith that she was brought
up with.
After spending so much time inthe pediatric ICU and seeing so
many children die, thatsometimes draws people closer to
God.
For her it pushed her away fromher religion and she became
what I guess you would callagnostic although I don't think
that people use that termappropriately and as a

(10:55):
consequence of that when she andmy father had children.
We weren't brought in, butthere was a lot of questions
circulating and most of ourfamily is very religious, so we
had the opportunity to ask themlots of questions and I um, at
an early age, started havingsome very, very unusual
experiences that brought me backto what you might call God and

(11:16):
what I might call God, but Ihaven't put a.
I never put a label on it.
It was this sort of connectionto something greater than myself
which was a bit of a surrender.
And when I was in churches,there was one in particular in
Pittsburgh, where I grew up,where we went to a.
Which holiday was it?
It must have been around, youknow what?

(11:37):
It was probably around ThreeKings, which is an Orthodox, you
know, celebrating the exactsame thing, but it was, it's
like, based on the lunarcalendar, I think something like
that.
Anyways, we were in a church andit was in this like old
cathedral, where there was apipe organ and there was was
humming, the same tone, and Iwas like, whoa, this is, this is

(12:00):
a lot, this is great.
Like you can feel, like you,can you get it?
You're like oh, I understandwhy people go into these
beautiful cathedrals and my wifeis Mexican and going into those
cathedrals there it was thesame thing, like there's so much
power there, um, and, and sothese like little, these little
bits of information, ofexperience, I suppose, kind of

(12:22):
stuck with me.
And then I had the joy ofsitting in childbirth and I was
like God, you know God, godcomes into my mouth more than I
guess.
I would even guess there'ssomething that will happen.
Yeah, yeah right, right, right.
There's something here that isso much more important than what

(12:44):
I learned about the humanexperience in this basic biology
of anatomy and physiology.
And even if we were to go way,way back in time, there was this
tension between the people whowanted to cut open bodies and
there was a church in the statewhich didn't want us to do that
because you know we would bedisrupting this person's.
You know posthumous experienceafter they die.

(13:04):
But then you know people likeDescartes and some others.
They convinced the church thathey, you know, the soul is
separate from the body, so wecan operate on the body and cut
it up and understand its partswithout ever disrupting the soul
or the spirit.
And unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your perspective
the pendulum hasn't really swungback to the center, or
fortunately, depending on yourperspective, the pendulum hasn't

(13:27):
really swung back to the center.
And so the practice of medicinehas been a confrontation to a
lot of spirituality, and so muchso that if something isn't
fixed by a pharmaceutical or asurgical steel, like a scalpel,
it's considered woo-woo or it'sconsidered religious quacks or
whatever.
You know, it's consideredwoo-woo or it's considered, oh,
you're religious quacks orwhatever.
And that was actually a bigpart of what drew me away from
the conventional model.

(13:47):
It's like, guys, there is farmore here to Rebecca's birth
experience than the scalpels andthe pharmaceuticals and the
vital signs Like that was, forall intents and purposes, a
spiritual experience as much asthat was what they would believe
is a medical procedure.
So I found this strange tension,not being a religious person,
but witnessing this, the magic,I mean truly the awe of

(14:08):
childbirth and realizing I don'tknow if I can do it that way,
because I'm here with thesewomen in the midwives and
whatnot who actually aretreating this more as a
spiritual rite of passage, aconversation with God, one foot
in the grave I mean, I've heardall of these terms and I've
adopted them myself whichcompels you to in the very least
, reconfigure yourself aroundthe religiosity of life itself.

(14:31):
So I know that's not the answerthat you were maybe expecting,
but perhaps in 30 years I willbe able to put a label to it.
What's interesting is, eventhough I was not raised as most
Christians were, when I got intothe end-of-life care which is
my fellowship, training inhospice and palliative medicine
the Christians loved me becauseI somehow get it, but I came

(14:58):
about it in a very, very long,roundabout way, that's
interesting.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
It sounds like you are right there, that you
understand that God exists andthat there's something more, but
maybe there is somethingblocking you from just, maybe
it's an experience that you haveyet to have with Jesus himself
to say I am the way and thetruth.

(15:23):
Like you're, it sounds like youhave a very good understanding
of christianity and what it,what it is for the most part, um
, given that you weren'tcompletely, you know, raised in
it, like you said.
But yeah, that's, that's veryinteresting, because you get
that this, this, there's aspiritual side of things, and

(15:44):
now there's like another stepdeeper.
I don't know, man, I think theLord's calling you to something
and maybe through this he'llpull it out a little bit.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
I'm open.
I'm open, I like that, oh,that's great.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
So is it Jesus that holds you back, or what is it?

Speaker 2 (16:04):
Do you mean like, what?
Like, what is it?
Do you mean like like what,what like what.
What is stopping you from?

Speaker 1 (16:08):
being like I understand that there is a god.
This experience is bringingwomen birth.
We'll use birth as the example,you could use end of life care
too, but birth is bringing womento this point of where they are
breaking into themselves andbecoming a new version of
themselves when they go fromthat maiden to mother, and they

(16:31):
have many times, like you said,women have spiritual experiences
with God during that.
And I guess my question is moreof I don't know.
I feel like you're sayingthere's something there and
there is a higher power, butyou're just not sure of exactly

(16:52):
who he is.
But I don't know.
Is that an assumption?
Yeah, yeah, Because I want toadd one more thing.
You are my only guest that didnot share a Bible verse.
My only guest that has not thatdid not share a Bible verse.
Even Dr Stu, who is not a.
He is technically Jewish, butnot a not practicing, even he

(17:13):
gave me a Bible verse.
So I'm curious.
I'm curious why.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
And I'm on, why, well , there was something very scary
that happened to me, um, why,well, there was something very
scary that happened to me, um,and it's not like a near death
experience, nothing like that.
It was, um, when I was abouteight.
Uh, let's see, how old was I,what?
How old are we when we're inlike first grade, like seven or
something?

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah, something like that.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
Um, I was, uh, seven or eight years old, probably in
first.
It had to be later than that.
It seems that seems too young.
Anyways, I was seven or eightyears old, probably in first.
It had to be later than that.
It seems that seems too young.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Anyways, I was very probably under 10.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
And I was in a minivan probably my best friend
at the time and his mom hadasked me at some point about
religion and I was a little kidI had no real connection to I
don't even know if I had thelanguage.
I said, oh no, we don't go tochurch.
I went back to like playingwith my things and she said, oh
well, so you haven't beenbaptized?
And I said I don't know whatthat is.

(18:11):
She was like oh well, you'reprobably going to.
She said something along Idon't want to misquote her, but
it was something like you're me.
It actually made me afraid tospeak about religion for at
least a decade, wow, probablyuntil college, and I had some
like really cool liberal artsteachers that like made it fun

(18:33):
to talk about again, so thatcould have been an impediment.
I don't think that that's likesomething that is an active
impediment for me.
Um, what I will say is that,having been out in California, I
took care of so many differentpeople of so many different
faiths that I was like God.
This is like I actually startedenvying people for having such

(18:55):
a close connection to someorganization around this
conversation of spirituality,you know, and there were
Buddhists, there was Jewish, ofspirituality, you know, and
there were Buddhists.
There was Jewish, buddhist,hindu, I mean, you name it.
We had such a colorful diasporarepresented in California and

(19:16):
they all seem to say the samething but they use different
language to say it and I thoughtthere was some beauty in that,
so much so that it actuallymaybe felt like gosh, there
isn't actually a right one here,and maybe I'm wrong.
I'm okay that, perhaps I'mwrong, but it seemed like the
most religious people weretotally cool with all of the
other religions and they allwere like we're all talking

(19:37):
about the same thing and I waslike man, that's kind of cool.
I hadn't really had areasonable conversation like a
heart-to-heart conversation inthat way, like I hadn't really
had a like a reasonableconversation, you know, like a
like a heart to heartconversation in that way.
And I was having that with my,my clients, in fact, one of my
good friends.
They're they're still in SanDiego, they're super religious.
We actually went to to theirchurch after the birth of their

(19:57):
daughter.
I was their birth their doctor,that was on call, and there was
something about him describinglike surfing, that was not in
San Diego, that that he was likelike oh, this is something you
do or you're going to burn inhell.

(20:25):
And I was like whoa, there'snot a lot of love there.
But, like in this new iterationof my sort of adult life,
definitely there's so much morelove there.
So maybe it's just a gradualpull, but there's not like an
intentional barrier or anythingI can identify as an obstacle.
It's just, I've got a lot offriends with different religious
um upbringings and the people Ilove the most are those that

(20:48):
are like um, like they reallybelieve it, and they also I
don't know if this is the rightway to put it, but it's like
they don't take it too seriouslyCause like they have such a
close connection themselves andthey're like, yeah, like you'll,
you'll, you'll get there, orsomething like that.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
I do think you'll get there.
That's interesting what you hadto say about the kind of all
religions.
We kind of refer to that ashaving almost even a one world
religion, which is what theCatholic Pope is kind of trying
to usher in a bit which isthere's a prophetic aspect to
that from a biblical context,that there will be that push at

(21:30):
a point in time from a propheticstandpoint of a one-world
church or one-world religion.
So it's kind of interestingwhen you look at it from the
history of Christianity and thehistory of faith.
But I want to speak to whatthat person said to you about
baptism, which first of all, isfalse.
Baptism doesn't make youanything.

(21:53):
Baptism isn't going to make yougo to heaven.
From a biblical standpoint,baptism is an outward reflection
of an inward choice.
So it's kind of like a marriageceremony.
When you get married you'remarried on paper, right, but
when you have a marriageceremony you are showing it's a

(22:16):
public confession to others thatyou're choosing to love that
person for the rest of your andtheir lives.
Baptism, like I said, from aNew Testament biblical
perspective, is supposed to bethe same way you have chosen to
follow Jesus Christ or Yeshua,however you want to pronounce
his name, because that's a wholeother conversation of how

(22:38):
Jesus' name has progressedlinguistically.
But you're a follower of Jesusand you're showing others that
you're a follower of Jesus andthat you have accepted him into
your life.
Then you get baptized.
But because a lot of theseOrthodox, or Roman Catholic,
greek Orthodox, like you said,I'm just, you know, in general
kind of Polish, romanianOrthodox churches, they still

(23:01):
have a lot of traditions ofchild baptism and it's kind of
honestly, it's just a littlesuperstitious.
It's like let's sprinkle alittle water, protect them, just
in case you never know.
So I get what you're saying.
From the perspective of there'sso many religions, you know how
would I or how could I choosejust one?

(23:21):
And I think that what I woulduse as my argument if we were
having a debate which we kind ofare, is that the Bible teaches
us that Yeshua Jesus is the onlyway to God, and that's in John

(23:41):
chapter 14.
And that's in John chapter 14.
Now Islam denies that Jesus isthe son of God, but they also
acknowledge that he walked theearth and other historical texts
.
Jesus is actually one of themost cited in historical texts
that he existed.
So it wasn't like people justmade this up and say he existed.

(24:07):
There's all this corroboratingtext to say Jesus was a real
person and for me, from a faithperspective, I think the
strongest argument is that hisdisciples followed him and
spread the word of who he wasand the miracles that he
performed, to the point of beingbrutally murdered themselves.

(24:28):
Like all of them died horrificdeaths.
Like would you follow?
Would you say that someone didor was something?
They weren't?
If it meant that you were goingto get literally physically
crucified for it?
If it meant that you were goingto get literally physically
crucified for it, I feel likethat's pretty compelling.
Now, I believed in Jesus longbefore.

(24:50):
That was an argument that Icould understand as a child, but
it was more because I felt thepresence of God, similar to the
way that you feel the presenceof God when you are attending
births or you're going throughthis experience.
You are attending births oryou're going through this
experience.
Now I'm putting aside a lot ofthese other religions, like
Hinduism and Buddhism are notabout a personal relationship

(25:12):
with God.
There's a lot of.
It's a, you know, a mono Godwhere there's lots of different
gods, so I think that they're alittle bit different in the
conversation.
When it comes to theconversation and here, like my
thing is, it's not about who isright at the end of the day,
right, like it's not about whohas all the answers, cause I

(25:34):
think that that's one of theways we can get into hot water
is to be like, oh well, I'mright, and I'm right because of
this, like God will revealhimself, he reveals himself to
us and who he is, and, at theend of the day, like that's for
me personally, having had thoseexperience with him, the first
experience I ever had with God.
I was young, four or five yearsold, and I was in my front yard

(26:00):
and I just felt the presence ofGod and I saw this almost I
don't know if you've ever seendifferent artwork of you know,
faith artwork.
Like you know, they have thepictures of Jesus and of Mary
and sometimes you'll see thehand of God.
It was something similar tothat where I just had this

(26:21):
overwhelming like vision, almostlike you would imagine, a cloud
in the shape of the hand of God.
It was kind of like that and inthat moment it was like he
revealed Himself to me and I'dobviously been hearing about
stories of God and so that waskind of where it started.
Now, it's not to say that mylife has always been seeking God

(26:44):
.
I've had moments where I'vejust lived my life and not
worried about that, and he'sbrought me back.
And the reason I feel like he'sbrought me back and to have
these conversations is to spreadthe good news and to say like I
gave you guys life and I gaveyou guys the answers and you're
created in my image.
Dna is one of the mostincredible creations that there

(27:08):
ever could be and I want you totalk about that and bring light
to that, because we've gotten sofar away from it, especially
with the medical industrialcomplex.
That's all about suppressingand controlling bodies.
Instead of understanding bodiesand why they were created, what

(27:30):
their functions are, how theywork, what we can do to help
heal them, we're so focused onpathologizing them.
And it's like I think about somany older people right now, so
many older people right now.
My mother-in-law is one of them.
Other friends, parents, wherethey're going to hospitals

(27:52):
because there's a problem, andwith my mother-in-law it was
that she was having strokes andthey missed it twice.
She went to the hospital andthey're like well, we don't know
, she looks like she has a UTIand my cousin is a medical
doctor and we downloaded the appto get the paperwork and

(28:13):
everything.
And she took a look and she'slike she's had, she's had a
stroke.
She needs to go back to anotherhospital.
These hospitals were the onesthat were screening for this
stuff, right, like they're theones who took the tests.
All she did was read theresults.
We ended up taking her to astroke hospital, you know
hospital that specializes instrokes and nowhere in this

(28:38):
process was it about like, let'sfigure out why you're having
strokes, what could be be thecause of this?
How can we prevent this fromhappening?
It was take this medicine, takethis medicine, take this
medicine.
And my sister kind of made thisjoke the other day because it
was her father-in-law was goingthrough the same thing that they
literally same thing brainbleed, figured out.

(29:00):
Oh, it was a stroke.
Oh, he also had a seizure inthe hospital.
Take these medicines, goodbye,you'll live for a little while,
goodbye.
And I think that that's why Iwant to kind of shout from the
rooftops about God, because whenyou take God out of this, it
becomes transactional and itbecomes about like, how do I

(29:22):
just live longer and what's thepoint of living anyway, right,
like what are we living for Ifwe're just going to take the
medicine and live and live andlive to stay alive but not live
a healthy or happy or satisfiedlike fully living life?
I feel like I just talked in ahuge circle but feel free to
jump in.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
Well, that's good.
So where does God come in inthe relationship that the lay
person has to, let's just say,the healing arts?
Like, where does God come inthere?

Speaker 1 (29:59):
In all of it, in my opinion, because he created us
and he gave us the tools that weneed.
He gave us every plant andanimal and fruit and vegetable
and everything that we have infront of us to heal.
And in many senses this isgoing to be me starting to talk
about corruption and, you know,become a conspiracy theorist and

(30:20):
all that stuff.
But you know, you probably knowfrom studying medicine that 120
, 150 plus years ago, peoplewere still using natural
remedies to heal illnesses andsickness and they were using
things that came out of theground and creating concoctions
and all that good stuff to helpheal, until people realized that

(30:43):
they could make money off ofpharma.
And so my opinion is that Ipharmakia the word pharmakia is
used in the bible in a biblicalcontext and it actually means
sorcery and trickery, and so Ikind of see that there's two
sides to health.
There's the side that's like Iwant to understand god's

(31:04):
creation, I want to understandthe human body that he created
and how he created it and usethese healing modalities that he
gave us to heal.
And then there's the other sideof it, the sorcery side of it,
that is all about greed andcorruption and money and the
love of money that says, yeah,I'm going to help too, but to

(31:27):
the extent that no one is goingto get healed, they're going to
be in a constant cycle, and soit's almost like there are two
views on health, in my opinion.
There's the folks that trulywant to help other people, and
then there's this demonic side,this evil side.
There is a biblical context tothis.
You'd have to go back and listento some of those episodes,

(31:48):
though, nathan, because it wouldtake a long time to have that
conversation, but there is anexplanation in the Bible, in
Genesis 6, about angels thatwere cast out of heaven.
So think about from where I sit.
I believe that we live in aspiritual realm.
You know, it's not just likethis 2D kind of humans, like

(32:12):
there's us, but there's more.
There are other entities asidefrom just us, and so that's why,
when I ask the question, youknow you believe in God.
What does that mean?
Because there are otherentities, in my opinion.
What does that mean?
Because there are otherentities, in my opinion, that
walk amongst us, or theirspirits roam amongst us, and
Genesis 6 kind of gives us thewhat's the word, the story

(32:35):
behind that, because it talksabout Lucifer who?
Lucifer and Satan are differentpeople, by the way, but Lucifer
was an angel.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
I was going to ask, I was going to challenge you on
that, but you said that, yeah,yeah, they're different.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
He was cast from heaven because he wanted to be
like God and he took apercentage of the angels a third
of the angels with him and theyquickly became corrupt.
They lusted after human women.
They took them for their wives,so they fornicated with human
women and created these hybridhumans.

(33:11):
And so if we want to look athistory and this whole idea of
Greek mythology and all thesehalf-human, half-animal gods, it
was probably true.
They were probably theseyouilim is what they call it and
the angels were called theWatchers.
So there is a biblical contextto a lot of stuff that we can't

(33:35):
explain today or in school we'retaught like oh, this is Greek
mythology, Mythology meaning notreal, but very well could have
been real.
Now that brings us to the flood, and god literally says in the
bible that he was so disgustedby what he had created that he
wanted to start over.

(33:56):
He saved, kept one family, andthat was noah, and noah's wife
and his children and hischildren's wives.
That was it that's he kept.
He cleared everybody else outbecause it had become so corrupt
.
These Nephilim were cannibals.
They were eating each other.
It was just this terrible earthhad become this terrible place,
but the knowledge that camefrom if you think about someone

(34:20):
or something, a being, being, anangel, angelic or having more
knowledge than the average humanbeing coming from heaven coming
to earth.
That was when pharmakia wasfirst introduced and these
potions and this kind of magicstarted.
It's interesting to me becauseit kind of has it's permeated,

(34:44):
it's grown, it's developed.
But again, I kind of see thatthere's two sides to this.
There's a side that wants toreally help educate people on
their bodies and healing them,and then there's this other side
that is looking at it from ahuman or humanistic perspective
and almost wanting to be Godinstead of learning.

(35:08):
All right, how does the liverand the kidneys, how do they
work together?
What does the gut have to dowith all of this?
You know people are finallystarting to ask these questions
publicly, which is great, butfor a long time this is never
something that was talked about.
You know, when I was in my 20s,I never heard conversations
like this.
It was you go to the doctor, thedoctor gives you a medication.

(35:30):
You go to the doctor becauseyour period is heavy and you're
bleeding a lot, and they giveyou a drug birth control and say
this is going to fix you, andit doesn't fix you.
It's toxic poison that givesyou cancer and other problems,
leads to more problems.
In the long run it can lead toinfertility and cancer.
So now, instead of being helped, you've been poisoned.

(35:50):
And I don't.
The press that I always getfrom people is like well, I
think that they think thatthey're doing a good thing, Like
doctors.
They don't think that they'redoing people a disservice, and
that's why I think that there isa demonic aspect to this, and
when I say demonic, I enemy.
There's an, there's anotherside, there's a non-god side to

(36:12):
this, because who would want todestroy god's creation?
Not god.
So it has to be from the otherside.
You know what I'm saying?
Like there has to be anotherforce, another spiritual force
at war.
If there are two sides, in myopinion, yeah.

(36:34):
And maybe this is deeper thanyou wanted to go today, but here
we are.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
No, no, no, we haven't gone deep enough,
actually, good, okay, so aswe're talking, I'm noticing
there's little things, littleresistance points coming up, and
maybe this goes back to me nothaving somebody like you early
on in my life who could talk tome about these things in a way

(37:01):
that fostered more curiosity asopposed to fostering fear.
And the word you brought up,lucifer, this fallen angel, is
actually a very sad story.
You know, as far as stories goLike, this is a really like wow,
what a pitiful creature.
And like you'd imagine, thisbeautiful angel whose wings are

(37:26):
clipped like falling.
I don't know, this is theimagery that comes to mind, but
many people hear Lucifer andthey think Satan.
I don't know, this is theimagery that comes to mind, but
many people hear Lucifer andthey think Satan, they think the
devil, they think that is thedemonic Antichrist.
However, there's some other, andthis actually has to.
We have to lean into theEastern philosophies a little
bit here.
There's another figure namedAhriman, which is actually from

(37:52):
the Persian sort of mythologies,so to speak, not to say, I'm
not using mythology the way thatyou used it, where it's like.
That isn't true.
A myth, for you know, a myth ingeneral is a story that helps
us explain the experience oflife, right, or the world, these
mythologies and the ritualsthat word, I know, has a nasty

(38:17):
connotation in some circles, butthe things that we do on a
regular basis, including therituals, so to speak, of
childbirth, actually give.
They give strength to themythologies and the mythology
that I've really grappled withthroughout the medical training
part of my life was this notionthat if we can take apart

(38:40):
everything that is Rebecca, weshould be able to put her back
together and she's good as new,and of course, we know that
doesn't work any more than itworks.
Then you could take thevitamins and minerals that are
in a carrot and put it togetherand call it a carrot, because
there's some other essence thatis a carrot, or an essence that
is rebecca, or a tree.
You, you, you have this, living, something there, and so, um.

(39:07):
So this, this tendency for us todeconstruct things in order to
look at each part individuallyas opposed to looking at it
holistically, which would saythat, hey, the sum of your parts
is far greater than I'm sorry.
Rebecca is far greater than thesum of her parts.
That materialistic way oflooking at things is very

(39:28):
aromantic, it's actually notluciferic.
Looking at things is veryaromantic it's actually not
luciferic.
But this tension betweenaromantic, which would be the
opposite of materialism I'msorry luciferic, the opposite of
materialism, we can call itangelic.
And then we have the aromantic,which is grounded in rigid and
materialistic.

(39:48):
It's that tension between thetwo that makes human beings, in
my sort of way, of my worldview,it makes human beings so unique
.
We actually have this likecosmic antenna pulling the
heavens and the earth together,and it's sort of like this
channel that forms between usthat allows us to have this sort
of Christ-like experience, likeit's almost like that's the

(40:09):
purpose of human beings in someregard.
And the reason that this isrelevant to the materialistic
medical construct that so manypeople are trying to leave is we
actually need a little bit moreof this lighter, luciferic
quality in our way of thinkingin order to break free from this
notion that you are just adiseased person with a baby

(40:32):
inside of you, like an Elon Muskincubator or something that can
be deconstructed throughsurgery and pharmaceuticals and
put back together.
That is a very profitable wayof looking at human beings, but
it's deeply, deeplymaterialistic and reductive in
the sense that they don't evenwant you to remember that there
is this angelic essence to you.

(40:55):
And that's where I think I hit adead end, because people you
know I'll talk about Lucifer andArmand People are like you're
talking about the devil and I'mlike, no, I'm not, like this
goes back to that fear that wasset in me.
Like, no, I'm not, I'm not evenafraid of that.
What I actually want is more ofthat.
I actually want us to have moreof this.
The spirituality being takenout of the birth experience is

(41:19):
was the original corruption,that was the original sin, so to
speak.
That has led us down a pathwhere it's very, very hard to
now get out of that hole.
But anyways, go on.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
I'm going to pass the ball back to you.
That's kind of like kickingyour kid out to the street right
, I created you but you're notdoing good right now and for him
to kind of go down and leadthis path to corruption.
I actually recently had aconversation with my dad about
this, because my dad loves totalk theological things, and he

(42:05):
said every time I come to yourhouse we always got to talk
about this deep stuff and I gowell, I have one for you.
Do you ever feel like Luciferfeels bad?
Do you ever feel like maybe hehas repented or said I'm tired
of being the bad guy, I don'twant to be this person anymore?
We talk for two hours, threehours about that hours, three

(42:33):
hours about that.
But I do want to add one morekind of layer to this, because
it says in Genesis that when theflood happened and everyone was
killed so including thesehybrid creatures, these Nephilim
their spirits left their bodiesto roam the earth.
So the spirit of the Nephilimdidn't die in the flood, their

(42:54):
physical bodies did.
And this is the argument behinddemons when I use the word
demons, that it's a spirit oforiginally watchers came to
earth, became hybrids, nephilim.
You know, if you're followingthis trail and this is kind of

(43:17):
where the conversation can turnto talking about like
generational curses and thingsof that nature, because if you
think about it from thatperspective, these spirits were

(43:37):
originally in heaven and now youknow well their origin started
in heaven and then they becamesomething else, and so that is
the idea behind there beingspiritual people that are not
communing or communicating withspirits that are angelic,
directly with God.
Let's just say it that way.
So, for example and this iswhat maybe I might refer to

(44:04):
someone being in like new age Idon't know if you want to refer
to it as that like a psychicmedium who is communicating with
their, saying that they'recommunicating with the dead, but
we are told in our Bibles thatwhen someone is dead, they are
asleep.
Technically, this is a wholeother conversation that the
church doesn't have and we cankind of sidestep some of this

(44:24):
stuff too, but I think that thechurch does a very poor job,
that the church does a very poorjob.
All denominations, both Catholic, orthodox and Protestant
churches, do a very poor job intalking about these things and
having these conversations, andit's why people say things like
that child said to you oh,you're not baptized, you're

(44:44):
going to hell.
That's not how this works.
We don't have these bigconversations, and because we
don't have these bigconversations and because we
don't have these bigconversations, it can leave
people very confused and andwondering well, wait, this
doesn't make sense, or whydoesn't this make sense?
There?
There's more to it.
Um, shoot, now.
I forgot where I was going withthat before.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
I just rewind my brain.
The?
Uh, it was an N word I can'tremember.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Oh, new age and mediums.
Okay, so there are quite anumber of people that you could
follow on Instagram.
One of them that I think does areally good job communicating
about this is Jen Niza.
Her handle is xpsychicsaved,and she was a psychic medium for
decades, for a long time.
She was a psychic medium fordecades, for a long time, and

(45:33):
she thought she wascommunicating with light, that
she was communicating with thedead loved ones of relatives or
whatnot, but she learned overtime, because she kept having
these crazy bad experiences,that she was communicating with
demonic spirits, ie Nephilimspirits, and the reason they
knew so much about the familieswasn't because it was a dead
grandparent, but it was becauseit was a generational demon that

(45:55):
had been hanging around.
And I'm using the word demon Iknow it sounds kind of scary,
but I don't know what other wordto use.
It's kind of it that has beenhanging around for a long time,
right, like hanging around foryears and years, and so it knows
things about you, and I've hada lot of people on this podcast
that have shared theirtestimonies, and one in

(46:17):
particular.
I think her episode actuallyjust went live the first half of
it last week where she had thisexperience with her son and she
said something to me like thisdemon knew me, he knew what I
would do, he knew what myresponse would be, and I've

(46:37):
heard things like that beforefrom people who have had these
spiritual experiences.
It's like they are beingwatched for a period of time and
they're being spirituallyattacked.
Now, the other thing that I'venoticed about folks that have
these kinds of experiences isit's mostly people that are
seeking to know God or learnmore about God or who he is,

(46:57):
that end up having these attacks.
People that are just living inthe world, like drinking and
carrying on and doing whateverthey're going to do.
Those type of folks don'tusually have these kinds of
experiences, or at least don'tattribute it to that until
something serious happens.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
And that was kind of the example, like a near-death
experience or something.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
Well, just like hitting rock bottom, I guess you
could say.
Our guest last week.
Her name was Jessica or I don'tknow what order the episodes
will be in, but the episode withJessica.
She said I was just living mylife, she was involved with
psychic mediums and Ouija boardsand all this stuff.
And she said, you know, it tookhaving literal spiritual

(47:43):
experiences, like where she washearing roaring things in her
house were being moved, and theneverybody thought she was crazy
.
Everybody's like are you ondrugs?
You need to get drug tested,what is wrong with you?
And she's like I'm not onanything.
She even got tested just toprove that she wasn't on any
drugs and she was just havingthese spiritual experiences with

(48:07):
the supernatural.
So anyway, that's a lot to justput out here at this, but I can
corroborate some of this becauseI had a very spiritual what I
consider to be a spiritualattack when I was having my
first home birth and it was tome what felt like an enemy

(48:28):
attack.
And this is why it kind ofcomes back to talking about God,
because if we're going to thinkabout God as being the father
of humanity, we are created inhis image.
He created women for men, formarriage, go forth and multiply
to have children, to have arelationship together to build
families, and then so on and soforth relationship together to

(48:50):
build families, and then so onand so forth, right, repeat this
process.
Then what's the opposite ofthat?
Divorce Ruin the family.
And if you put this tension andthis pain and this hardship
between husband and wife, motherand father, then now the child
has experienced trauma that nowinfluences the future of the
child.
The child goes into adulthood,all messed up and then the cycle

(49:16):
of dysfunction repeats.
So it's kind of like, if wewant to look at it from that
perspective and I'll just giveyou the shortest version ever
but I was going into my secondbirth, which I had, my first in
the hospital.
It was horrible, the worstexperience ever.
Birth which I had my first inthe hospital, it was horrible,
the worst experience ever.
And after that I felt the Lordsay don't go.

(49:41):
I'm like what do I do?
What do I do?
I'm pregnant again, but I don'twant to go through this.
He's like don't go, stay home.
And it was hard because I wasconditioned or programmed for so
many years that this is how youdo things right.
I wasn't raised in thisenvironment.
My mom did have me in abirthing center, but I didn't
grow up with his conditioningthat home birth was the way, and
so I at first was going to amale OBGYN, because he was the

(50:05):
one guy in town that was theVBAC guy, and I had had a
C-section an unnecessary onewith my first.
And every time I walked inthere it was like I heard the
Lord's voice going get out ofhere, what are you doing here?
You don't belong here.
This is not the place for you.
And I kept going until onevisit I met with a new midwife

(50:28):
and the first thing she says tome is so what are you going to
do about your vaccines?
What are you going to do aboutwhatever it was, I don't know
DTAP and COVID or something?
And I was like I'm never comingback here, lady.
You're going to even ask meabout vaccines.
We are not aligned.
I'm done, I'm out.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
And why are?
Why are Christians inparticular in our country?
Why are they very much in somecircles like leading the charge
against the vaccine movement?
You know where I stand onvaccines, I presume.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
Yeah, that's a good question.
I wouldn't say that it is aChristian.
I wouldn't necessarily say thatit's a Christian doctrine that
has been adopted, because Idon't really know very many
people at my own church that Iattend that agree with me on
this.
Most still think that vaccinesare safe and effective and do

(51:27):
stuff and are positive.
So I wouldn't say thatculturally it is something that
is pervasive amongst the church.
But I will say that there aregroups and pockets of people
that have had experiences or areclose enough to other people

(51:57):
inside the medical system that Ididn't.
I never intended to go down thispath, right, like I never was.
Like I'm going to be ananti-vaxxer.
I'm going to be against themedical model.
I'm never going to OBGYNappointment again in my life.
That was not what I set out todo but because of some
experiences that I had in thesystem, it's opened my eyes and

(52:18):
changed my heart in a lot ofways.
I would almost say that I don'teven know anything about
Jehovah's Witness.
I really don't.
The only thing that I know isthey don't believe in secular
medical care.
You know like they'll be likeno, just let me die.
And I'm basically right therewith the Jehovah's witness.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
You mean secular.
What do you mean by secularmedical care?

Speaker 1 (52:42):
Like you know, the industrial medical complex that
doesn't.
It's not built on a foundationof God.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
Oh, I see.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
You know what I mean?
Well, I mean, they still comein, but they don't let.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Yeah, they don't want , like blood transfusions and
whatnot for sure, but we've hada lot of them in our C-sections
and whatnot.
So that's interesting, yeah,how do you answer this then?
Like, so I'm also, as Imentioned, also hospice and
palliative care and, dependingon the denomination of

(53:13):
Christianity, some people wouldsay, you know, this is God's
like.
Well, let's say, in the birthspace, you know we're playing
God by overly intervening in anotherwise natural process.
But on the other end of thespectrum, so to speak, at the
end of life, a lot of peoplewould say who are we to play God
by not doing all of theseinterventions?

(53:33):
God gave us those skills tokeep people alive.
So like which one is?
Are they in conflict with oneanother, those two approaches,
or am I just missing something?

Speaker 1 (53:44):
That's a good question.
I've thought about this a lot,because people ask me this stuff
all the time, because I'm kindof becoming more drastic in my
own personal views noweverybody's going to do whatever
they're going to do right and Iwould never, you know, say my
way is right.
But if I were to look at, I'mgoing to take my.
I'm using my own grandma, forexample, who has passed away.
She was on 30 medications a daybefore she died for two decades

(54:12):
.
There is no doubt that thosemedications kept her alive, but
for what?
She lived in an assisted livingfacility.
She was by herself.
You know we would visit herwhen we could, but it was very
sad to see that that was thelife that she was being kept

(54:34):
alive to live, to watch her TV,watch the news, watch cops every
day for 15 years.
Is that the way that Godintended us to live our lives?
Is to just stay alive, to justbare minimum watch TV for 15
more years?
Now, on the other hand, youcould say, well, if she didn't

(54:57):
have those medications, shecould have lived as long but
been in a lot of pain because,let's say, she had arthritis or
whatever the case might be.
And I think this is where theconversation comes back to why
it's so important for us tolearn about our bodies when
we're young and how to keep themhealthy before we get to that

(55:20):
point Now.
Every body is going to breakdown.
And this is a big problem thatI have with society as a whole,
and especially in women'scircles, is this I never want to
get a wrinkle, I never want tosag, I don't want my body to
change.
And we're in this huge cultureof cosmetic surgery now where
everybody's just like, oh, I'lljust laser it away.
You know, nip, tuck it away.

(55:41):
If we were meant to stay thesame, we would.
You know, like our bodies aresupposed to age, that is part of
life.
And now I'm saying this beforeI'm going through a lot of that
stuff, right?
So it's easy for me to say andone day I'm going to be humbled
when I'm getting all wrinkly tosay, you know, all these

(56:02):
anti-aging serums and all thisstuff that's out there, but the
point is, like we are meant todegenerate, we are meant to
break down.
Like we are meant to degenerate, we are meant to break down.
There are some things that Ithink that we can do to nourish
and provide for our bodies, andthat kind of goes back to this

(56:27):
whole idea of I'm going to usemy mother-in-law again.
What does she need?
She needs someone to come inand help her learn about what to
eat so that she's not eatingall of these inflammatory foods
that are causing her.
I mean, she's borderlinediabetic, like you know.
That's what is needed here isto, as a community and as a

(56:49):
people, to come together and say, well, what can we do
differently or what can we dobetter.
And this is kind of a beef thatI think that most of us that
are outside of the system now,especially with home birth, have
about birth.
When it comes to preeclampsiaspecifically, they'll say, well,
we don't know why people getpreeclampsia.
We don't know why this happens.

(57:09):
Yes, you do, it's becausepeople don't take care of
themselves, it's because peopledon't eat enough protein, they
don't have healthy diets, andthen by the time it's too late,
oh, she has preeclampsia.
And then all of a sudden, it'sa reason to deliver a baby early
, when she's been in the samestate of malnutrition for the

(57:31):
whole pregnancy.
It doesn't make any sense.
But that's not a conversationthat's being had in the hospital
system.
Enough, you know, they mightgive you a piece of paper that
was like a photocopy that says,like you know, eat the eat, eat
healthy, sure.
But, that's not a realconversation.
It's not like go get real foodfor pregnancy or go read up on

(57:54):
the brewer's diet or go, youknow, check out these things
there's there's not a priorityand a focus to that, and so I
don't know that this answersyour question.
But my, my personal stance is,if I had to take 30 medications
to stay alive, I would ratherjust 30 medications to stay
alive?
I would rather just go yeah,and there was a part of that?
Yeah, totally, there was a I gotsomebody to meet anyway, right,

(58:18):
yeah, I'm a believer, like whatdo I want to be here for?

Speaker 2 (58:28):
That's true, yeah, so so if you so, most of my, my
family, on both sides, wereChristian.
And when you know every year wewould lose, you know another
family member would pass awayand after they die we have the
wake, we go to the, you know weall drive in a line all the way
to the cemetery and then,ubiquitously, every single

(58:49):
person that has died in my lifehas been embalmed, put into some
nice clothes and then they'reput into a lead-lined casket and
then that's put into a concretetomb.
So you had said that it'snatural for our bodies to
degrade and to fall apart, andit seems like all of that, like

(59:10):
pump and circumstance.
When we pass away, it seemslike that's actually the
opposite.
Like heaven forbid, we getreabsorbed back into the soil
from whence we came, and I'mcurious.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
From dust we begin and dust we go.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
Yeah, why do all that other stuff?
Why that's ritualistic.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
That's ritualistic, that's ritualistic, that's
ritualistic, that's ritual stuff.
I um never experienced honestlyany funerals like I did until
my husband was raised catholicand until I met him and started
going to catholic wakes and Iwas like whoa, this is crazy.
I've never.
It's just a very ritualistic.
There are certain denominationsand this is why I don't like to

(59:50):
make faith and being a believerin Jesus Christ and of God of
the Bible.
That's the focus, not thereligiosity side, because people
are humans and we perverseeverything and we have to make
everything into this extra, thisextra, and that's what I think.

(01:00:14):
That I think that it's sweetthat people like to have respect
when someone dies, but there isa lot of ritual around it that
does it's not biblical andthat's what I always go back to.
You'll hear me say that a lotIs that biblical.
Does it say in the Bible thatyou need to do these things
Because we're told that we don'thave to do anything, that there

(01:00:38):
are no rules when it comes tobeing free in Christ, that we,
as believers in him yes, if youtruly believe he is who he is
and that you're following him,you're going to make better
choices in life.
It's not to say that you can go,do anything you want, as in you

(01:00:58):
know, kill people and all thatit's to say you don't want to do
those things.
But then all the other stuff,it's just fluff and that's what
I think takes away from.
I think that that takes awayfrom God and it takes away from
his story.
When there is all this fluff onthe sides to say, like you know
, we got to have the fancycasket and the this and the like

(01:01:19):
, none of that stuff matters,none of it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
Then I used to hear that too, like oh they're going
to say a mass Great.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
What is that?
That's not going to do anything.
Ultimately, at the end of theday, each one of us is going to
stand before the Lord forjudgment and he's the one that's
going to have the final call.
And there's also you'll hear alot of people say like, oh, I'm
just you know.
Let's say, someone had a lot ofpain at the end of their life.
They'll say I'm so glad thatthey aren't in pain anymore and

(01:01:48):
that they're in heaven sittingnext to Jesus, aren't in pain
anymore and that they're inheaven sitting next to Jesus.
And technically that is nottrue, because technically,
heaven isn't open, hell isn'topen.
Technically, we are waiting, ifwe believe in the Bible, and
what's going to happen next inthe book of Revelation?
Judgment day hasn't come.

(01:02:09):
Jesus is going to come back.
He's going to live on the earthfor a thousand years, and so
everyone that is dead is asleep.
If we were to look at it from atechnical perspective, from a
biblical perspective, now itmakes us feel good to say, oh,
that person is with Jesus.

(01:02:30):
But I mean I hate to say it itlike this, it's kind of like the
matrix.
If you think about it, you knowhow, uh, neil like wakes up and
he's like in a, he's in thatwater bath too.
That's kind of all of us,everyone that's passed away,
they're, they're wherever theydied, in a sense, until they are
going to be waking up, and it'snot as pretty as we like to

(01:02:52):
think of it.
But we also have a totallymessed up view of what angels
look like.
We think that angels are likethese cute little babies with
little butts and little cherubs.
That's not what angels looklike If you look at it from a
biblical perspective.
They're pretty scary looking.
And this whole conversationright now in the world of like

(01:03:14):
drones and is it aliens andaliens are angels are pretty
alien looking.
If you I don't know if you'veever seen there's an account
called the ai bible and it takes?
it takes scripture, biblicalscripture, and descriptions of
angels, or I mean think aboutthese experiences that people

(01:03:34):
have had with angels.
What do they say every time?
They were frightened, they wereafraid because it was scary,
yeah.
And so they take thedescriptions, like in Isaiah,
and they plug the descriptionand from Revelation into this AI
builder and it shows what anangel really would look like and
it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Anyway, all right, let me do you.
This is actually very fun forme because you're so well-spoken
and you've thought so muchabout this and sometimes I don't
have the courage to bring someof these questions up, so I
appreciate you playing with mehere.
Do you see any?
We're going to go back to that.

(01:04:15):
What you just said about youknow, we know that angels look
like this, but when you thinkabout the medical system and
what you don't like about themedical system, so let me say,
when people describe the medicalsystem, as you know, we're
playing God and we're trying tohijack the system and not allow

(01:04:36):
things to happen naturally theway God had created us.
You know you brought up likethe elegance of DNA.
Here's one of the problems Ihave with this whole construct
is how do we know that DNAoperates the way that we were
taught?
The DNA works?

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
And that's not that's yeah go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
It's not a question for you to answer, but it's
something for for those for youand others to to think about,
cause I'm not sure how we canever say for sure how that works
and that's a big problem whyI've become so married to these
basic biological principles.
Like I don't've become somarried to these basic
biological principles, I don'twant to be married to that
because I'm not sure that it'strue.

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
That's actually a really great question because I
ask the same thing all the time.
Of everything, my husband issuper duper into space and I
love to just poke the bear andbe like, well, how do you even
know that space is what youthink it is?
Just because someone's told youYou've never been there.
So how do you know?
How do you know that thisplanet is X size and is next to

(01:05:39):
this and that you don't?
And that's the thing with allof these complexities to our
body, like you said, dna.
How do we know that DNA isexactly?
I mean, how do we know thatgerms are what they say that
germs are?
You know, there's this wholeconversation now about you know
there's germ theory and then nowit's well, something happened

(01:06:00):
to you and you're having anexperience as a result of your
trauma to that experience, andgerms are just you know, don't
mean anything there's.
We don't know.
I think that you're right inthat.
There are some pretty coolscientific facts in the bible,
and the one that I turn to themost is in leviticus.

(01:06:22):
It says that the life of thebody is in the blood, and it's
this idea that the mostimportant thing about us as
humans and being in thesehumanly bodies is our blood and
the health of our blood.
And there's this really greatnaturopath doctor, an
iridologist.

(01:06:42):
His practice is called Spiritof Health.
His name is Dr Vaughn.
I don't know if you've everheard of him.
He's really, really good inthis area and talking about
God's design for our bodies andour health and stuff like that.
And one thing that he says is alot of times, you know, we use
blood panels to try to figureout what's going on with someone
, but sometimes someone's bloodcan be healthy, because our

(01:07:04):
blood was meant to stay healthyand keep us alive, and it can be
something else and we have todive a little bit deeper, into a
deeper layer and into a deeperlevel, past the blood.
Let's say, you know, an organis struggling because it's
blocked up, that the filter isblocked, and so there are
constructs that are biblical orscientific things that are

(01:07:25):
biblical.
We're not given all the answers,and I don't think that we were
meant to.
Honestly, I don't think that wewere meant to.
Honestly, I don't think that wewere meant to fully understand
this stuff.
There's a mystery to it that Idon't need to have all of the
answers, and I think that that'swhy I've been able to step
outside of the medical systemfor birth is because a lot of it
is unlearning, and learning tonot fear and be afraid.

(01:07:50):
I did a survey for this episodeThank you for sharing it in your
stories, by the way where Iasked people that home birth and
people that don't home birth.
You know what questions wouldyou want me to ask, nathan, and
I'm sure you get this one a lot,but one of them was what about
let me find it on my list herewhat about if there's an

(01:08:13):
emergency?
And that's the biggest, thenumber one thing that people say
to me.
When I tell them, like I justbirthed that home, I just go
upstairs and have this baby inmy bathroom, they're like I
would be so scared, I would beso afraid that something bad
would happen.
And I think that that's thedifference with where faith

(01:08:41):
comes in and where God comesinto it for me, because,
regardless of whether somethinghappens or it doesn't happen,
it's in his plan.
He told me that already.
I know the plans that I have foryou, and none of us are told
that we're going to live forever.
None of us are told we're goingto live a happy life, there's
this pursuit of happiness.
There's nowhere in the Biblethat it's like.
My goal for you guys down hereon earth is to be happy.

(01:09:04):
It's not so.
That is an easy one.
And we're not told we're goingto have health.
We're not told anything, we'renot promised any of these
positive, affirmative thingsthat all of us want, and I think
that's why women are so scaredto step outside of it, because
you're taking the gambleessentially on what does God

(01:09:26):
have planned for my life?
I'm either going to live or I'mnot.
Plan for my life.
I'm either going to live or I'mnot, and I think that you have
to be at that point honestly inorder to fully release and do
something like have a free birth, because you have to be okay
with the alternative.

(01:09:46):
Either way and I thinkspecifically she said here it is
what is the plan if there's atrue emergency?
For example, I'm 45 minutesaway from our hospital, our ER
and L&D, and this isn't to saythat free birthers should be
stupid and not learn about birth.
That's actually the opposite of.
What I say here is do yourstudy, talk to midwives, talk to
doulas, talk to other freebirthers, home birthers, join

(01:10:09):
communities.
We're not going to just knowthis stuff because we were never
taught it.
It comes from community andsome of it comes from intuition,
but some of it you know,there's a bunch of books that I
got just because I wanted tolearn.
What did this person say aboutthis?
Like Heather Baker, you know,she wrote Home Birth on your Own
Terms and I wanted to know whatdoes she say about emergency

(01:10:31):
scenarios?
And I may or may not do oragree with everything that she
says, but I'm going to educatemyself on those potential
situations, especially since soI didn't finish the rest of my
story about home birth, but Iwas with an OBGYN and then I
went to a home birth midwife andthen she dropped me when I was

(01:10:54):
35 weeks pregnant because Ifinally got the operations
report from my originalC-section, which it was like two
and a half years prior, aftergetting cleared by the way, she
sent me to the hospital that Ihad this baby at to get my scars

(01:11:15):
checked, which I went throughwith her first requests because
I had to or else she would dropme then, and they cleared me to
VBAC, got the report and then itwas basically in detail what
happened.
So she knew that I had aC-section.
She knew that I had hysterotomyextensions and that the doctor

(01:11:36):
cut my bladder during theC-section, but for her to read
it and that they put on the lastline of the operations report
not a candidate for TOLAC due tohysterotomy extensions.
And now what's interesting isthe VBAC OBGYN guy that I had
originally gone to.
She went back to his office toask him for advice because she

(01:12:02):
was trying to see what otherpeople would do.
What would you do in thissituation?
Because the lady at thehospital that I originally went
to that I'm really skipping overa lot of facts here.
I had a scar check.
It was done by an OBGYN thathates home birth but is semi

(01:12:22):
supposedly supportive of VBAC.
Right when I was leaving theroom she said is there anything
else that I can do to help you?
And I was like oh, actually Ihaven't gotten my full medical
history.
We've requested it from youguys for months.
What's the best way for me toget this?
And she said oh, you got tocall, which is what we already

(01:12:43):
did.
I was at the hospital, so I justwent down to records, requested
the records, waited and gotthem.
I also pulled the records formy daughter because I wanted to
see.
I was very scared because I wasvery much like don't vaccinate
her, don't give her vitamin K orany of that stuff.
And I was scared because I'veheard that some people will do

(01:13:04):
it anyway and then write it down.
They didn't, fortunately.
So anyway, I get the report, Itake a picture of it, a
screenshot, I text it to mymidwife.
She calls me maybe an hour laterand she said that that doctor
that I had seen for the scarcheck said that that doctor that
I had seen for the scar check.
She said I was good to be back.

(01:13:25):
But she told my midwife youshould care her out because she
had hit stratum extensions andso that's a risk factor.
A higher risk puts her athigher risk for uterine rupture.
And even though I was willingto take the risk, my midwife I
think I was maybe her sixth orseventh VBAC at that point she

(01:13:46):
wasn't willing to take the riskand so she said sorry and she
was upset about it.
She wasn't cold about it oranything like that, but I always
kind of had this feeling thatshe was going to carry me out.
I don't know why I just did,and so when I went to my
appointments with her man.
I talked for those full hourthat she would give me for those
appointments.
I was asking questions because Iknew I needed to know what was

(01:14:09):
in her brain and there was areason behind it, because I
ended up having to make thechoice Either I was going to go
to a hospital or I was going tohave a free birth, because I no
longer had a midwife.
And I had a free birth and itwas awesome and it was this
totally God-filled experience.
But it was, I feel, likespiritual attack on attack.

(01:14:32):
The fact that I mean, I'malmost to the end 35, going on
36 weeks my home birth midwifedrops me Suddenly.
That means I also don't have abirth pool now, which was one of
the things that I really hadwanted to do.
I ordered a birth pool.
I just bought straight up,bought a midwife birth pool from
in his hands or whateverwebsite it was.

(01:14:55):
And as we were going into thatlast week, things felt really
weird between my husband and Iand, mind you, this is the
person that I'm planning ondoing birth with now.
I got no more midwife she'sgone.
I did have a doula that wassupportive of what I was doing,
but she also was very tied tothe medical system in many ways.

(01:15:16):
She was used to.
Most of her births were athospitals.
Some of them were home births,so she wasn't entirely
comfortable with my situationand, yeah, so I'm depending on
my husband for a lot of thisright.
And then some things come out.
In that last week we're allsitting on the couch.
My mom had come in because shewas going to help with my oldest

(01:15:38):
daughter.
She was two at the time when Iwent into labor and I just felt
like things were off with myhusband and my mom had handed
his phone to me and I was goingto hand it to him and like it
swiped when I was, you know, gothanded it and there was this
app on there that was new, likewhat's this about?

(01:15:58):
And it was, you know, one ofthose streaming music apps where
people like sit behind theircomputers and do music or
whatever.
But every person he wasfollowing was just like totally
inappropriate and I'm like whatis up with this?
So we end up, you know, talkingabout that over the course of a
couple of days.
But there was just this nudgingthat like something.

(01:16:20):
There's something more here,there's something something else
going on and I just had a deepintuition about it but I
couldn't explain it.
The night I, the day I went intolabor, I was awoken at three
o'clock in the morning and avoice says to me you need to go
look at his phone and look atfiles, specifically Click on
files and you know, you get thatlike heart racing feeling.

(01:16:43):
I felt like I was gonna throwup.
I'm like I don't want to do it,I'm too scared of what I might
find kind of thing.
And then I got up and I walkaround the bed and I open his
phone and I click on files andit was like his phone had
screenshotted a couple ofinstances where he had been
looking at porn and that wassomething that's not.
We don't do that in ourrelationship and that had been

(01:17:05):
something early on that we I hadthought we worked through, and
so of course I'm just like what?
And it was sad, scary and kindof like creepy at the same time
that this voice told me to dothis.
And then it was right.
And so I kept saying I don'tknow if this is from God or the

(01:17:28):
devil, that this is gettingexposed, but it was very
upsetting, right.
And so I'm like all bent out ofshape about this.
And then I go into labor, mywater breaks like I start
trickling and I end up Iling.
I was sitting on the toiletjust like because I couldn't

(01:17:48):
even I would have had to keepchanging my diapers at this
point.
Sitting on the toilet, I callmy sister.
It's like how do you have ababy at home?
Just you and the person thathas been essentially lying to
you and not telling you thetruth for however long you know
that's what's going on throughmy head is like this is crazy.

(01:18:09):
This is the most important,pivotal moment.
And now this just blew up and mysister is she's usually the
co-host on this podcast, but shedoesn't always come for
everything because she's gotlittle kids too and she's kind
of hard to get these days, butshe is a very strong woman of
God.
And she said this is an attack,this is a spiritual attack on
your family in this moment,right now, to tear you and your

(01:18:33):
husband apart, because what doesthe enemy want?
He wants to destroy this birthexperience that you're about to
have by separating you from yourhusband.
And you know, obviously shewent on for a long time with
more detail and examples andthings like that, but she said
something like you just need topre-forgive him.
Pre-forgive him for thissituation, put it on the back

(01:18:57):
shelf and you guys address thislater, you know, pray over him
and all that good stuff.
And so that's what I did.
That was the only choice, right?
Like what?
Am I going to fight with himabout this while I'm having a
baby?
I needed to get my head in thegame, and it just was never more
clear to me that there is aspiritual side to birth than in

(01:19:20):
that moment when I was beingliterally attacked to pull me
and him apart at the mostimportant time that could ever
be for having this baby.
It's not like this happened.
I mean, it could have happeneda week before and then we've
just been fighting for a weekleading up to this, but it
happened the day I went intolabor, which is it was just
these constant little things totry to pull me away from

(01:19:44):
birthing at home is how I feltin looking at these experiences
and instead of succumbing tothem and saying like you know
what, I give up, I'm just goingto go to the hospital, they're
going to take care of me overthere, I was like no, we're
going to do this, we know whatwe're doing, we're ready, we're
going to do this.
And I'll tell you, he was great.

(01:20:05):
I jokingly call him midwifeMike because he really helped me
through that whole experienceand we birthed this baby.
Well, I birthed the baby.
He got his screamed in his ear,you know solid three times, but
we had the baby at home and itit was a re reawakening for me.

(01:20:25):
It was an awakening moment in myspiritual journey and I think
why I feel so strongly about Godbeing in the conversation,
because there is a dark and alight.
There is a battle that we arefighting against and it is not
something that we necessarilycan see.

(01:20:50):
I'm going to pull up a verse,because I can never remember
exactly what it is.
Ephesians 6.12 says For we donot wrestle against flesh and
blood, but against rulers,against the authorities, against
the cosmic powers over thispresent darkness, against the

(01:21:11):
spiritual forces of evil in theheavenly places and that one
really resonates with me,because it was something that I
couldn't see at all, that wascommunicating to me.
That was like stirring the pot,you know, like let's tear this
up, let's tear this apart, and Ithink that you could.

(01:21:34):
So I would argue that there aredark forces that sit across
different communities and acrossdifferent things, like I think
that the pornography institution, whatever you want to call it,
the whole industry is dark, isdarkness.
Most people that go into thatline of work experience some

(01:21:55):
sort of sexual trauma as a childor some sort of emotional
trauma between them and their aparent, or both parents, or a
sibling or a partner, and a lotof that stuff stems from hurt in
the first place, and then hurtpeople go through and
over-sexualize and then it drawspeople and draws them away from

(01:22:18):
their marriages and their happyrelationships.
And it's, in my opinion, justso much deeper than that.
And the amount of women I'm inthis biblical group for women
there's maybe 100,000 women init and the amount of women's
stories that I see come throughthat are pornography related

(01:22:38):
with their spouse, it's crazy,it's an, it's a battle, man Like
, it's a.

Speaker 2 (01:22:44):
It's a real attack and a real battle on our
relationships right now, youknow, and that yeah, yeah, you
know I gotta say there's acouple of things that have come
up in the conversation.
The first is that there's thisuniquely monotheistic religious

(01:23:12):
percept about how things are andthat is tied to this notion
that women are here for men toprocreate and everything else.
So there's that part of theChristian theology that I think
I actually think plays a bigpart in how we manipulate, you

(01:23:35):
know, childbirth and whatnot.
But also most of my friends allof them were Christian.
They all had issues withpornography.
There was a lot of shame aroundthese.
What were thought to beunnatural feelings come up and

(01:23:55):
you know, as a mother, how doyou raise children and tell them
, hey, those feelings, that youactually have these unnatural
feelings and it feels good totouch parts of your body.
How do you reconcile thatwithout them feeling the shame
and the guilt and wanting to goand do it anyways?
And then they turn their backon religion because the

(01:24:15):
religious leaders tell them it'snot right to have those
feelings.
They become shameful, then theyhide it from their spouse in
the future and then we say, no,that was the devil, or was it
just that we didn't have ahealthy expression of sexuality?
Um, like, even childbirth is apretty sexual experience and and
I I want to, I want to.
You know, I let me provide someclarification there.

(01:24:36):
There's very few instances inwhich we as adults are like awe
inspired, and childbirth is oneof them.
But it's awe-inspiring in partbecause it's such an intimate
environment.
I am sitting between open legswith naked genitalia and there's
a baby coming out of it.
In some ways, in order for meto not be a creepy male OBGYN, I

(01:25:01):
can't speak about this as asexual experience because it's
not for me, it's not for thewoman giving birth and it's not
for the man necessarily, but theact of conception required a
sexual, a very, very deep sexualintimacy and for me as a
stranger, I have to now sit inthe place where this baby was
conceived and have to receivethe baby, or the dad can receive

(01:25:25):
the baby, but I'm like kind ofthere and I'm not supposed to
see.
I'm supposed to objectify thisin the same way that it sounds
to me like women are sort ofobjectified in this dichotomy of
the male and femalerelationship in a marriage under
God, of the male and femalerelationship in a marriage under
God.
So you know, it's rife withissues.

(01:25:46):
Little boys and little girlsprobably are growing up feeling
very ashamed around theirsexuality.
And I don't meanheterosexuality, I mean like
wanting to have sex and enjoysex Like isn't that like not
cool within the church?
So, unless you're doing it forthe sake of having babies, so of
course there's that temptationthere.
But I guess what you're sayingis that that temptation is

(01:26:09):
coming not from God, thattemptation is coming from the
devil, and it is our job, oryour husband's job, to push back
on that temptation.
Is that?
Am I hearing that right?

Speaker 1 (01:26:19):
Yes and no.
God created his body right,right, and he created his body
to have sexual sensation.
And that's pretty cool actually, like thanks, god.
Yeah, that's nice that we canenjoy and appreciate each other,
but we are actually told in thebible that our bodies and it

(01:26:41):
says it both directions.
It says that a woman's body isfor her husband and her
husband's body is for his wife,and so we are directed at what
to do with that.
And I think that that is wherethis whole purity culture thing
comes from, and a lot ofmillennials have been damaged by

(01:27:02):
the whole purity culturerhetoric that you know, wait
until you're married, do thepromise, ring your promise to
God until you're married.
And yes, it can and has createda lot of shame for a lot of
people.
And listen, I didn't do thingsthe right way, my husband and I

(01:27:22):
sorry, mom and dad, if you'relistening, I'm just kidding.
You know we are not perfectpeople we didn't wait until we
were married.
This is where everybody stopslistening.
No, I'm just kidding.
That is how many in theChristian culture and society

(01:27:44):
it's like oh, we'll judge you.
And so when it comes to thisidea of pornography and
temptation and all that, yes,men were built with their own
sex drives, as were women, butwe are told what to do with
those sex drives, and that is touse it on each other, and

(01:28:05):
anything outside of that isoutside of our design and what
we're supposed to do.
And now I have my own qualmswith that whole industry just
because of the objectificationof women and what it's done to
women and all that.
You know there's many, manylayers to the pornography
conversation, but it damages therelationship between a man and

(01:28:27):
a woman, because how, how is awoman supposed to be her most
vulnerable if she feels like shecan't be?
And this is something that Ihear a lot from women that have
been on a similar side of thattheir husband was looking at
porn, or whatever the case mightbe is they now have a hard time

(01:28:49):
connecting.
So now, what has pornographydone?
It has disconnected a couplefrom the most important sacred
act that they could do with eachother, which is give their body
to the other person.
Now, I'm very fortunate in thatmy perspective on this is that

(01:29:12):
it's not about me and that's howI'm able to not continue to
make this an ongoing thing.
You know my husband, I wentthrough that incident right, but
it doesn't matter what I looklike or who I am.
I could be kim kardashian andI've actually used this example

(01:29:32):
before, because when kim wasmarried to kanye, he had a porn
problem and he was married tokim kardashian, who everyone is
trying to look like KimKardashian because she's, you
know, this person that everybodywants to look like, or whatever
.
It's just an example that thisis not about me and my husband,

(01:29:58):
him looking at porn.
He was looking at porn longbefore he knew me, you know,
since he was 12, whatever age,he was exposed to it in the
first place.
And this becomes a questionabout what do you do with that
feeling?
When you have those feelings,what do you do next and what are
you pursuing?
And so we're told that evenlusting after another woman is

(01:30:23):
considered adultery in the Bible.
So if we're going to look tothe Bible, technically, then
that's adultery.
But you know, am I going tostrangle him around the neck and
be like you?
Committed adultery.
This is over.
Because you looked atpornography?
No, no, because you looked atpornography, no, my relationship

(01:30:47):
with him has value and Ibelieve in grace and I believe
in forgiveness, and I believethat we all make mistakes and
all of us, you know, have theability to look at all the stuff
that we do against God.
And how many times has heforgiven us?
Look at all.
I mean it's very much.
I liken it to a parentalrelationship, like you know, now

(01:31:08):
that I'm a mom thinking about,do I stop loving my kids because
they don't listen to me?
No, they just don't listen.
Now imagine what it must belike for God.
Not only do we not listen tohim, we don't read his book, we
don't read what he's trying toteach us, and then, when we do,
we're like eh, I don't know.

(01:31:29):
All right, friends, as you arehearing, nathan and I are really
getting into the nitty grittyof a lot of topics today, but
we're not done just yet and I amvery grateful for Nathan's
willingness to listen to myrants and tangents.
I am recording this segmentright now, after having
re-listened to our conversationand listen.

(01:31:50):
I've got to apologize toeveryone, nathan, especially for
said tangents.
With that said, if you're intothat and into this, there's more
to come, so stay tuned.
Next week we are going todiscuss male practitioners in
the birth space, as well as whyNathan left hospital birth and

(01:32:12):
more.
So, again, stay tuned if you'dlike to continue on the journey
and, as always, thank you fortuning in and for being on this
journey with us.
If you would like to findNathan outside of the podcast,
you can do so on Instagram atNathanRiley O-B-G-Y-N or at

(01:32:36):
BornFreeMethodcom and, of course, if you'd like to join the
mission, the radiant mission,you can do so on instagram,
facebook or on youtube.
And today we are going to closewith john 16 33.
I have told you these things sothat, in me, you may have peace

(01:32:56):
in this world.
You will have trouble, but takeheart.
I have overcome the world.
We're wishing you a radiantweek and we'll see you next time
.
Bye everyone.

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128. Breaking Free from the Medical Model: Dr. Nathan Riley on the Sacredness of Birth (Part 1)

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