Dear Friends,
Gabriela Rosa joined me from Sydney, Australia to talk about fertility. She only treats one kind of patient now: couples who’ve been trying to get pregnant for two years or more, or who’ve been through IVF that didn’t take.
She told me about a woman who’d been trying to get pregnant for nineteen years and was ready to stop. She wanted one honest last attempt, and a few months later, she was naturally pregnant for the first time in her life. It happened again with the next couple like her, so Gabriela went back to Harvard to find out why, and tracked seven years and 544 of her own patients.
“78.8% of them took home healthy babies. And 60% of those actually via natural conception.”
In most of medicine, a doctor asks about your symptoms so they know what to test for. In fertility, it works backward. You get diagnosed the moment a clock runs out. Try for a year, no baby, and you’re labeled “infertile.” Then if four tests come back fine — clear tubes, ovulation, a uterus, sperm — you’re told it’s unexplained. Nobody looked any further.
Gabriela had a leaking toilet in her own bathroom. Three plumbers resealed it and it kept leaking. When she came back from vacation and showered, the floor bubbled up. The toilet was never the problem, it was her shower’s waterproofing that was failing.
“I could reseal that toilet a hundred million times and I was still going to have the problem,” she said.
That’s what she sees in her practice, over and over. Insulin resistance nobody tested for, because it isn’t diabetes yet. Sperm quality nobody checked, because the workup stopped at the woman — even though the man is half the equation. Cycle after cycle of the same fix, because nobody traced where the leak was actually coming from.
Gabriela and I agree the advice couples get at the start is wrong. They’re told, try for a few months and you’ll be pregnant. She’d rather tell people the truth: for some of you it’s three weeks, for some of you it’s twelve years, and nobody can tell you which on day one.
Please listen to the full conversation when you get a chance. Below, a small practice for finding your own leak.
Today’s Practice: Fix the Leak
A simple thing to take with you from this week’s conversation.
Pick one problem in your life you keep patching at the surface instead of tracing to its source — a health complaint, a fight with someone you love, a habit you keep white-knuckling instead of asking what it’s covering for.
This week, before you reseal it again, trace it back one more step than you normally would. Not to solve it today. Just to find out whether you’re fixing the toilet or the shower.
Write back and tell me what you found.
Golden light,
Dr. Richard Louis Miller
Forthcoming New Book
My daughter Evacheska is hosting a conversation I think many of you will want to be part of.
More people are having psychedelic and plant medicine experiences, through retreats, ceremonies, and guided journeys. The experience itself gets all the attention. What almost nobody addresses is what comes after: whether it becomes part of a person’s life, or slowly becomes a story they tell at dinner.
Evacheska is a somatic and psychotherapeutic practitioner in New York. She’ll be joined by Jennifer Byxbee, founder of CAP Therapy NYC and a licensed psychotherapist with over 20 years of clinical experience. Together they’ll discuss what actually happens during these experiences, physiologically and psychologically, and what genuine integration support looks like afterward.
Live on Zoom, Tuesday August 26, 7:00 PM EST. Open to everyone, and questions are welcome. 2 CE contact hours available for NY State licensed clinicians (LCSWs, LMHCs, LPs, LCATs).
Resources mentioned
Gabriela Rosa, Fertility Breakthrough: Overcoming Infertility and Recurrent Miscarriage When Other Treatments Have Failed (2019)
A note on working together
I offer a small number of one-on-one sessions for those who want to work with me directly.
This is not traditional therapy. You bring whatever is troubling you, and we practice the simple tools I have used with patients for six decades — ways of quieting the mind and easing anxiety that you can carry into daily life.
We go at your pace, and we work on what helps.
My Latest Book
The Adverse Effects and Therapeutic Potential of Psychedelic Medicines was recently reviewed by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos in the Journal of Psychedelic Studies. I was honored by it. Read the review here.
A few words from the front of the book:
Dr. Richard Louis Miller is a true elder and wisdom keeper of the psychedelic community, and his credentials come honestly, through hard-won experience. In this book, he continues his role as an educator by sharing his knowledge of both the perils and the promise of psychedelic substances. The reader will find valuable advice on how to avoid pitfalls while realizing the maximum benefits from the thoughtful and safe use of these remarkable medicines.
— Dr. Dennis McKenna, ethnopharmacologist and author of The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss
Putting forth the adverse effects of these substances in readable form contributes to their understanding and separates psychedelic scientists from those who would cover over, or even hide, negative effects of pharmaceuticals.
— Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco
It’s the fifth book in my series on psychedelic medicine. You can find it on Amazon.
My Other Books
Freeing Sexuality: Psychologists, Consent Teachers, Polyamory Experts, and Sex Workers Speak Out
Integral Psychedelic Therapy (co-edited with Jason A. Butler & Genesee Herzberg)
Psychedelic Wisdom: The Astonishing Rewards of Mind-Altering Substances
Psychedelic Medicine: The Healing Powers of LSD, MDMA, Psilocybin, and Ayahuasca
Master Your Mind: Practical Tools to Calm Anxiety, Silence Your Inner Critic and Stop Overthinking
