The Way of the Fertile Soul: Ten Ancient Chinese Secrets to Tap into a Woman's Creative Potential

by Randine Lewis

Being fertile and fruitful can mean giving birth to a child -- but to have a fertile soul means to give birth to the true self a woman wants to to live a life filled with passion, strength, joy, and adventure. In The Way of the Fertile Soul , Dr. Randine Lewis outlines ten ancient Chinese medical and Taoist "secrets" that hold the little-known key to successfully conceiving babies, new dreams, and a fulfilling life for women at any phase in their lives.

The Way of the Fertile Soul encourages women to strive toward health, abundance, and a fruitful, joyous approach to life. By using diagnostic questionnaires, qi gong exercises, and guided meditations to help the reader understand how the elements of nature express themselves in her body, mind, and spirit, The Way of the Fertile Soul provides the tools to greatly increase a woman's chance of conceiving, identify imbalances, reduce stress, increase energy, and uncover her intrinsic creativity and express it fully.

Genres: Spirituality, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published November 6, 2007

Reviews

[AslanClaw (Kirsten)]

Honestly, one of the best and clearest Eastern Medicine books I have read that really integrates a great deal information into a practical guide to healing as well as living wholeness. I would highly suggest this book as a starting point for Eastern Medicine.

[Lindsey]

Randine Lewis boils down some very complex Chinese medicine applied to women's fertility/creativity into a fairly digestible book. I know she is making incredible connections between her knowledge of Chinese medicine, her own experience, and the thousands of women she's helped. I found it hard to follow in some places (despite being a visual person, the images didn't help me) and know this is due to the complexity of the work she is doing. For example, I didn't retain much in terms of the specificity of the different types of energies and how they relate to each organ system, but I now know that symptoms result when certain energies are unbalanced. I loved the examples from her patients because they help illustrate the theory in a grounded way - I would have loved even more of those. I would have also loved a more in depth description of her own journey which she hints at in a few places (but perhaps that's in one of her other books?). The biggest takeaway I got from this book was to stop forcing / efforting / willing everything in life. By relaxing, allowing, and letting things happen, everything in life opens up. It's the basic Taoist philosophy but it was powerful to see it play out in the examples of the many women that she's helped. I'm looking forward to reviewing the book and recording some of her meditations so I can incorporate them into my daily practice.

[Shannon]

Easier said than done but I will try! Lots about letting go and some seemingly useful ways to do so.

[Charity]

I really liked this book, but I'm a little too lazy to do everything she recommends. I initially read it for my dissertation, since I'm talking to acupuncturists and physicians about health and medicine, and some of them deal with infertility, like this book. I then got interested in this topic, since acupuncturists tend to see infertility as a much broader problem than physicians (e.g. I'm not trying to get pregnant, but I have some "infertility" issues myself around my dissertation). However, I kind of feel like it's similar to getting a handbook on brain surgery. It's a little much to take in, and if I was desperate I might be more inclined to follow her advice to the letter. As it stands, I wrote about 50 pages in my journal, then never finished the book. :)

[Mie]

It was a healing book. Yet, it was hard for me to incorporate into everyday life somehow by just reading this book. Maybe if I join the actual retreat she organizes, I can try more. But I liked her word, " Does this nourish my soul or my ego?"

[Sarah Mikayla]

Reads like a meditation. Gave me some things to chew on, and a couple of new ways to look at things. Overall just comes back to the message of non-resistance.

[Shannon]

Interesting dive into energy healing; however, I struggled to become engaged with the content. Lots a aspirational ideas of how to flow through life with more joy.

[Sasha]

This book was simply not for me.