For her second delivery, Lilliana Rivera did everything within her power for a vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC), yet had another C-section delivery. In the years following she had a scar that felt as thick as an electrical cord, shooting pain, numbness, and a general disconnection to her body.

When she got on the abdominal massage table, she was shocked to discover her physical symptoms disappeared — and living dormant in her tissues was an intense feeling of guilt. In her womb space, the unprocessed emotions from that second C-section still lingered unmet, untouched, and unprocessed.

Meeting herself on the table was the catalyst that completely transformed the trajectory of her life. Her journey into abdominal massage and yoni steaming unlocked healing tools, a holistic health community, and mentors who would become her village.

Little did she know, she was building the knowledge and network she'd lean on when diagnosed with fibroids and complex cysts. When the OBGYN delivered the diagnosis, Lilliana took a deep breath and thought — I know what to do. I know how to care for myself. I know who in my network to call in.

This same trust carried her through a challenging perimenopausal moment where the bleeding would just not stop.

Learning the tools along the way and fostering a deep connection to what the body is saying affords us sovereignty within the world of women's reproductive health. Lilliana's story is a testament to what becomes possible when we build that relationship before the crisis arrives.

All of these experiences underscore the hope we hold — that our daughters may grow up knowing they have the tools, the network, and the trust in self to know how to care for their wombs.

About Kitara and Womb Stories Project

Womb Stories Project is the in-house podcast of Kitaralove.com, your one stop shop for everything you need for safe and effective Yoni Steaming at home. Kitara is a yoni steaming company made up of devoted womb healers. Our passion for steaming is rooted in the profound healing we've experienced ourselves and witnessed in those we support.

Our founder, Kit Maloney, holds a Masters Degree in Gender and Social Policy from the London School of Economics and has spent the past two decades as a thought leader on victim advocacy, pleasure activism, and holistic womb health and healing.

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IG @bykitara

Kit Maloney, founder of Kitara has been advocating for reproductive choice and freedom for over 20 years. Yet this conversation is like none she's ever had before.

As womb healers, Juliana and Kit hope to broaden the conversations we're "allowed" to have around reproductive choice and freedoms – and the physical, emotional, and spiritual impact that may have, honoring that everybody's journey is unique and special.

Pregnancy termination is a controversial, taboo, and polarizing subject that can bring up a lot of strong beliefs and big feelings. The commonness of abortion and narrowness of storytelling on the topic leaves many women alone in their decision, without spaces to integrate or heal afterwards, and also ignores the nuance and paradox we as women experience as the guardians of the threshold of life and death.

What does it mean for us to have both life and death move through our bodies? How do we process the loss of life physically, mentally, and spiritually?

Juliana honors the importance of claiming our rites (not just rights) and owning them through ceremony, or spiritual practices and rituals (including yoni steaming). We discuss how to remember and reclaim these rites and wear their inherent truths into our culture as we navigate the cycles, rhythms, responsibilities and decisions of living in a body with a womb.

The silencing of these nuanced conversations that hold paradoxes with love and compassion keeps us isolated. This is our one small step towards creating supportive spaces for women to explore their experiences within a grounded and loving container.

Ultimately, weaving the fragments of our experiences into a story we can claim, make sense of and feel whole within is our hope and wish for women who have ended a pregnancy. Know that you are not alone and there are practices and healing spaces to support you in holding this.

We hope you'll listen with an open heart, in your own timing and for your own healing. Through Kitara, we honor that we each come to this topic with our own beliefs, feelings, and journeys. We're here, doing our best, to hold it all with compassion. Sending love.

About Kitara and Womb Stories Project

Womb Stories Project is the in-house podcast of KitaraLove.com, your one stop shop for everything you need for safe and effective Yoni Steaming at home.

Kitara is a yoni steaming company made up of devoted womb healers. Our passion for steaming is rooted in the profound healing we've experienced ourselves and witnessed in those we support. We are devoted to supporting your womb health and healing journey.

Our founder, Kit Maloney, holds a Masters Degree in Gender and Social Policy from the London School of Economics and has spent the past two decades as a thought leader on victim advocacy, pleasure activism, and holistic womb health and healing.

Kitara provides beautifully designed, expertly crafted tools for safe and easy in-home yoni steaming. 🌸www.kitaralove.com🌸

In this episode of Womb Stories Project, Kit Maloney, founder of Kitara, shares her raw birth story on a phone call with two sisters… just 3 weeks after giving birth (in her 40s) to a healthy baby girl.

An incorrect ultrasound report shows Kit's baby in transverse position and completely derails her home birth plans. What followed was the very real possibility of an emergency C-section.

Her work with Kitara informed that moment. She recognized the pattern because she had heard it so many times. "Everything was fine, and then suddenly it became an emergency C-section." With an EPIC labor support team ( her husband and midwife ) and years experience in women's health and advocacy, Kit was able to have an unmedicated hospital birth within a highly medicalized system.

But what if she didn't? Her experience speaks to the importance of support in hospital birth, patient advocacy during labor, and how challenging it can be to navigate informed consent and avoid unnecessary birth interventions.

At one point, the situation escalated to threats of the Department of Health and Human Services being called. Kit found herself wondering, "how am I going to get out of here?" What followed wasn't just about getting through the experience, but what it meant to come out the other side of it with a sense of agency and wholeness.

Birth trauma is real. Kit has come to see that a huge part of trauma prevention is being able to process more quickly. To be witnessed and affirmed almost in the moment of it can set you up for a totally different recovery.

This episode reaffirms the "why" behind the Womb Stories Project. Sharing our stories is an invaluable piece of spreading awareness, education, and advocacy within the women's health and wellness world. If this resonates, like, subscribe and share your birth story below in the comments.

Kitara provides beautifully designed, expertly crafted tools for safe and easy in-home yoni steaming.

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Chaya Leia Aronson of Your Sacred Pelvis shares her powerful journey from chronic bladder infections and interstitial cystitis to living pain-free and deeply connected to her womb.

After years of pelvic pain, invasive medical experiences, and being told there was no solution, Chaya turned to natural healing, including herbal medicine, diet and lifestyle changes, Mayan Abdominal Massage, and Yoni Steaming. Through this work, she not only resolved her symptoms but reclaimed pleasure, nervous system regulation, and trust in her body.

We discuss how pelvic pain and uterine disorders are often rooted in trauma, and Chaya illuminates how trauma can arise from a much broader range of experiences than we typically consider, including a hard fall to the sacrum.

Through natural healing practices like yoni steaming, which supports deep nervous system regulation and invites gentle emotional release, we are able to move through pain and towards pleasure. Chaya speaks to the fact that activism is best sustained by joy, pleasure, and a regulated nervous system.

This episode is a testament to the possibility of moving beyond chronic pelvic pain and dis-ease in your own womb healing journey. A hopeful and inspiring story offering natural remedies, ancient practices, and wise teachers within the world of holistic women's reproductive health.

About our Guest

Chaya Leia Aronson, RN BSN offers both in person and virtual healing experiences that blend hands-on bodywork, somatic practices, and gentle lifestyle and herbal support to help you reconnect with this powerful part of yourself. She utilizes Maya Abdominal Massage, Holistic Pelvic Care™, Yoni Steaming, movement and posture practices, and holistic coaching to help you reclaim pelvic health and wellness.

Connect to Chaya on Instagram.

Learn more on her website.

Kitara provides beautifully designed, expertly crafted tools for safe and easy in-home yoni steaming. 🌸www.kitaralove.com🌸

Beautiful Yoni Steam Seats, Organic Herbs, Consultations & More...

Connect with Kitara on IG @bykitara

TimeStamps:

• 5:40 -14:50 How to Heal UTIs Naturally: Yoni Steaming + Mayan Abdominal Massage

• 14:50-18:03 Trauma as the Root of Womb & Pelvic Pain

• 18:03- 19:10 Holistic Support for Endometriosis

• 19:10-2:00 Yoni Steaming for Nervous System Regulation

• 21- 22:27 Using Herbal Allies in Yoni Steaming

• 22:27 - 29:41 Healing Generational Trauma in the Body

• 29:41 - 32:13 Releasing Ancestral Grief & Pleasure Activism

• 32:13 -35 Yoni Steaming Benefits: The Miracles of Yoni Steaming

Yoni steaming offers a gentle, effective approach to healing period pain naturally. In this episode of Womb Stories Project, Natalie Elliott shares how yoni steaming helped end years of severe period pain and opened a new relationship with her body and menstrual cycle.

Natalie shares her journey from severe cramps, dissociation, and trauma to discovering yoni steaming as the pathway to releasing, healing, and coming to live in deep alignment with her cycle and her womb.

What began as a personal healing practice of resting while bleeding became the foundation of her work as a women's health practitioner, and ultimately helped inspire a deeper, more cyclical way of operating for the entire Kitara team.

About our Guest:

Natalie Elliott is a women's health practitioner offering in-person and online coaching for a whole body approach to healing period pain, PMS and hormonal imbalance, naturally.

Explore her many delicious offerings: https://www.moonbabymagic.com/offerings

Connect with Natalie on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/natalie.marieclaire/

🌸www.kitaralove.com🌸

Kitara provides beautifully designed, expertly crafted tools for safe and easy in-home yoni steaming.

Beautiful Yoni Steam Seats, Organic Herbs, Consultations & More...

Connect with Kitara on IG @bykitara

• Intro w/ Natalie Elliot of MoonBaby

• 0:47-3:11: The Creative Energy Of the Womb

• 3:11- 8:58: Discovering Yoni Steaming for Trauma & Period Pain

• 8:58- 13:07: Why Soft, Gentle Healing Works

• 13:07-19:45: Talking About Menstrual Leave at Work

• 19:45-28:00 What Happens When You Don't Rest on Your Period?

• 28:00 - 33:31 : Painful Periods Are Common — Not Normal

• Outro w/ Natalie Elliot of MoonBaby

In this powerful transmission, Yasmine Minnifield, founder of Womb of Peace, joins Kit Maloney for a profound exploration of the Father Wound and how healing our inner masculine is a path to feminine restoration.

Yasmine shares how wounding to our inner masculine affects our sense of safety, openness to intimacy, and feeling worthy of provision and protection - often showing up as overfunctioning, burnout, or a hard, protective shell.

She maps the energetics of the wound onto the body through mineral imbalances, offering a tangible, multidimensional pathway to healing through herbal medicine, remineralization, and inner work.

Yasmine describes how Yoni Steaming supports every level of this process, from the physical release of old blood, tissue, and emotions to remineralization through the herbs in the steam. She invites us to use our steam practice to develop deeper intimacy with self and the ancestral line to create lasting mental and emotional repatterning.

Healing the inner masculine allows the mature feminine to rise, the Queen, who knows how to live and lead in a deeply nourishing, empowered way.

Yasmine Minnifield blends functional mineral science and somatic healing to help women decode their body's messages, with hair mineral testing as the doorway into deep restoration.

Order a Hair Mineral Test with Yasmine

Connect with Yasmine on Facebook and Instagram

🌸www.kitaralove.com🌸

Kitara provides beautifully designed, expertly crafted tools for safe and easy in-home yoni steaming.

Beautiful Yoni Steam Seats, Organic Herbs, Consultations & More...

Connect with Kitara on IG @bykitara

00:00 Healing the Father Wound to Access Feminine Power

00:57 The Father Wound, Minerals, & Cellular Level Healing

05:58 Wounding of the Inner Masculine or Animus, and Yasmine's Experience of Trauma, PTSD, PCOS

10:29 Linking the Effects of the Father Wound to Mineral Imbalances in the Body

13:13 Healing through Yoni Steaming and Herbalism

15:43 Archetypal Medicine, Energetic and Ancestral Healing Reclaiming Power and Sensitivity

18:13 Deep Physical and Ancestral Release and Repatterning through Yoni Steaming

21:12 The Transformative Power of Minerals

22:42 Yoni Steaming: More Than Just Hydrotherapy

26:48 Final Thoughts

Far too often we hear the same story, a woman gets diagnosed with fibroids and is told her only option is a full hysterectomy. In this interview, Kit Maloney and Rachel Rose talk with Miara Pack, who shares her journey of saying no to the white coat and bravely charting her own course.

Miara opens up about her experience with painful cycles and dismissive doctors and her choice to pursue natural healing: yoni steaming, breathwork, and lifestyle changes alongside western medical care. A cornerstone of her healing was her connection with Kit, the founder of Kitara, whose compassionate presence was a consistent source of strength, wisdom, and love.

We're honored to share this conversation of healing, self-empowerment, and the sacred bond between women supporting each other to reconnect to their wombs and inner wisdom.

Visit www.kitaralove.com for intentionally designed and expertly crafted products for safe and easy yoni steaming at home.

Learn more about yoni steaming and fibroids.

Connect with Kitara on IG @bykitara.

Timestamps

01:26 – Miara's first steam and meeting Kit

07:00 – Steaming at home without a seat

11:00 – Lifelong painful cycles and dismissive medical care

13:00 – Fibroid diagnosis and pressure to undergo full hysterectomy

17:30 – Daily steaming, tracking progress, and signs of improvement

18:30 – Making the emotional decision to have a myomectomy

26:50 – Post-surgery cycles, red blood, and no more pain meds

30:00 – Slowing down: movement, food, and nervous system support

35:00 – Reframing surgery as a reboot, not a failure

38:30 – Breaking the cycle for the next generation

42:00 – Sisterhood, journaling, and the power of being witnessed

Welcome to another episode of Season 2 of Womb Stories Project, a series of conversations with people involved in the home birth of our son. This is a really important conversation as part of this series because it is with the incredibly wise and amazingly wonderful Tiffany Skillings, who is a midwife and was my midwife through our fertility journey, throughout my pregnancy, and the primary midwife in the delivery of our son at our home.

I can't say enough about Tiffany. She is an incredible gift to the birthing community here in Maine, to me and my family, and we really consider her part of our family now. I imagine that after listening to this conversation, you will understand why.

Visit www.kitaralove.com for intentionally designed and expertly crafted products for safe and easy yoni steaming at home.

Connect with Kit on IG @bykitara.

Connect with Tiffany Skillings on IG @tworiverslactation and at www.tworiverslactation.com.

Timestamps

1:38 Tiffany's Journey to Midwifery

13:59 Midwifery as Holistic Well-Bodied Care

25:07 Expertise in Clinical Midwifery Training

31:20 Midwifery Challenges and Misconceptions

45:47 Elevating Midwifery and Public Education

49:32 Healthcare Costs and Transparency

55:49 Collaboration in Emergency Situations

57:22 Home to Hospital Transfers and C-Section Rates

1:17:11 Importance of Trauma-Informed Care and Debriefing

1:22:28 Intentionality in Client Care and Privacy

1:24:49 Special Moments in Mark's Birth