About the Episode
Fertility is often framed as a purely biological issue, but what if there’s more shaping our ability to create and receive in life than we realize?
In this episode of Whole by Design, Dr. Julie Lopez is joined by Dr. Natalie Grigorian, a Doctor of Oriental Medicine and Master of Acupuncture, to explore the hidden factors that influence fertility, not just in conception, but across all areas of life.
Together, they discuss how stress, the nervous system, and natural rhythms shape fertility and vitality. Dr. Gregorian shares how listening to the body’s signals, honoring cycles, and creating conditions for safety and receptivity can support healing, growth, and resilience.
This conversation offers perspective, insight, and practical guidance for anyone feeling stuck, depleted, or curious about how fertility extends beyond reproduction into creativity, work, relationships, and overall well-being.
Episode Guest
Dr. Natalie Grigorian (Dr. G) is a board-certified acupuncturist and herbalist who helps clients design highly personalized treatment plans grounded in traditional Chinese medicine and modern integrative care. Known for her warm, attentive presence, she supports individuals through fertility, vitality, and whole-person wellness using acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, trauma-informed care, and body-based practices.
She holds a Doctor of Oriental Medicine and a Master of Acupuncture from the Maryland University of Integrative Health, with advanced training in Chinese herbs, Acu Detox, Zero Balancing, wellness coaching, and contemplative practices, including Qigong and guided meditation.
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Episode Transcript:
Introduction
Dr. Julie Lopez: Hi, everyone. My name is Dr. Julie Lopez, and I’m your host for Whole by Design. On this week’s episode, we will be diving into fertility. And not just physical fertility, but all the different types of fertility that women or men can experience on this journey we call life. I am here with one of my favorite, if not the favorite acupuncturist on the planet, Dr. Natalie Grigorian. And she is going to be helping us with everything related to fertility with all of her wisdom. You should definitely stay until the end, when she is going to share with us her top three tips for nurturing fertility.
And it is so great to have you here today. Dr. G, we’re going to call her for today.
But before we jump in, don’t forget to check out our website, www.vivapartnership.com, for free and low-cost resources that can change your life.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Natalie Grigorian: Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to talk about fertility. And as you mentioned, not just about conceiving a baby, but how do we become fertile in our lives?
And if I can say even manifest what we are dreaming of.
Dr. Julie Lopez: I love that. I love the word manifest. You may or may not know the steps of all this work I do with people around transformation and making change in their lives. But I have seen the power of being in alignment.
Listening to the Body’s Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Signals
Dr. Julie Lopez: Earlier, when we were speaking, you shared the word alignment. And that is super resonant with the work we do over at the Viva Center, where we’re helping people really lower their stress loads and get their bodies on all different levels into a better place of alignment. So tell me more about how that all fits together.
Dr. Natalie Grigorian: Sure. So oftentimes when people come in, I, when like listening to their story, I’m hearing for how things present physically, and then how things present emotionally. And most importantly, I think spiritually as well.
So for me, if we’re speaking of just someone struggling to conceive, now we’re talking about having a baby, but this can all apply to anyone. The body’s always sending communication to that individual. So we’re looking at like, how does that present physically? Are they having headaches? Are they having digestive issues? What does that look like? And then we’ll explore the mental aspect of it. Are they in fear? Are they stuck? Are they ruminating in thoughts? Are they anxious? Are they like trying to figure out every single thing that they need to do, and are becoming like the very A-type person? And then lastly, you know, for me, it’s like, can you imagine what you’re trying to create into this world?
And a lot of what we do, and you can ask my patients, is I ask them to visualize and not just to visualize it in their mind’s eye, but to really use every single sense. So can you imagine the smell of the baby, holding the baby, what that feels like, what that would look like in your life today? And can you believe it, in the very end, that that can really be your life? And I find that that trio and working through it is really what it takes to conceive.
Why Visualization Changes the Brain and the Body
Dr. Julie Lopez: And to conceive, and you just use the physical aspect of conceiving a human being. And we know through brain scans that when you imagine something in a visceral way, the way you just described, using all of the senses, and can hold it firmly in your imagination, the same parts of the brain light up as when you’re actually doing something. It is so powerful. And because you’ve been using the word receive, I think that’s incredible. I’ve definitely… I just finished taping a whole section of part of my Breakthrough Academy about money, and you can be fertile in the land of money. But if you’re not prepared, and you’re not visualizing, and you’re not seeing it, and you’re sabotaging some of that, your system’s going to say, oh, no, that person can’t handle money, doesn’t know what to do with money. It works no matter the application. So it just made me think of that.
Conceiving Ideas, Businesses, and Shared Futures
Dr. Natalie Grigorian: Yeah, no, totally. My husband and I are both entrepreneurs. And so we have a ritual in our life to take time to support each other in visualizing what it looks like to be in a partnership of an entrepreneurial household, right, to your point. And it’s so important. I, not only… I am a mother of two, and I used all these practices. And I also, you know, own my clinic. So for me, as you said, these tools are not just for conception of a soul, but it’s a conception of any idea. And for me, even running a business is a living, breathing entity, right? There’s like a lot that there’s what we would say in Chinese medicine, qi that flourishes and goes all around, and how is it flowing? And do we take the time to take a pause and reflect? Is it a physical thing? Is it an emotional thing? Or is it a spiritual thing that is missing or unaligned?
Cycles, Seasons, and Being Ready to Receive
Dr. Julie Lopez: I love that. I love that. And you had definitely talked about the physical piece of it for women, right? And you had talked about cycles, not just ventral cycles, but seasonal cycles in life. And I’d love to hear a little bit more about how that comes to play in the idea of being ready to receive a baby.
Dr. Natalie Grigorian: Yeah.
Or a partner or love.
For me, I lean on a lot of the seasons according to Chinese medicine. So we have the five elements, and they all correspond to a season. So just for the listeners that they don’t know really quickly, you have the wood element, and that’s associated with spring. Then you have the fire element, and that’s associated with the peak summer season. Then you have the earth element and that’s late summer. Then you go into the metal, and that is associated with autumn. And then the water element is associated with winter.
And so what I think is really beautiful, we have what we call resonance in Chinese medicine. And so each element not only resonates with the season, but it also resonates with the different organs in the body, the different emotions. And it goes much deeper, but I’m trying to keep this at a very high level.
And so what I’m trying to get out here is understanding is… right now we’re entering the winter season. We’re all experiencing the shift in the sunlight while we’re recording this. And so the question is like, are we taking a moment for ourselves to actually listen to our body to understand, do we need more rest? Because there’s less sunlight happening during our day versus when we’re at peak summer, and we have the heightened hours of the day of sunlight.
And then it doesn’t always have to just be physically the season, but also what are you experiencing in your time? Does it feel like you’re in a time of going inward to really germinate the thoughts that you need to do? Are you trying to go inward to heal what needs to happen? Are you listening before then to what we would say going into spring, or the liver or the wood element, where we take action? And then that is highlighted by the bamboo shoot that’s literally shooting out. I don’t know, we have bamboo in my backyard, and literally overnight, it’s like six feet tall. But you needed to have that good root system to be able… and the energy and the resources to be able to manifest and then move through the season of summer of sharing it, the abundance, and then the harvest of the late summer, and then pruning things, which is a metal. How do you cut things out that no longer serve so that then you can go through the whole cycle again and get even more and flourish more?
Fear, Hesitation, and Reclaiming Vitality
Dr. Julie Lopez: I love it. And I started thinking of all the different applications where that truth, that science, that practice, that tuning in can really be used for great things. And you have shared that there have been a number of times where you’ve had patients who really prospered because you were able to help them get more into alignment, and others who were too afraid or too hesitant to invest in something that actually has proven time and time again to be really very critical in this journey towards wanting fertility in life.
Dr. Natalie Grigorian: I think, I don’t know what your clinical experience is, but in mine, I find it’s really scary when we shut everything off and then look in the mirror and are honest with ourselves. And can we have that honest conversation about what is going on? And I will always meet a patient where they are, and some patients are not ready to explore that. And when the patients are ready to explore that and address what areas are either physically, emotionally, and spiritually are, and usually it’s all of them, they’re the ones that are flourishing in their life. I have patients who will tell me their friends are asking, what are they doing to their face? And they’re doing nothing because the glow, the inner glow is shining, right? Because they’re vital, vitality of life comes through.
Dr. Julie Lopez: Yeah. Vitality.
Fertility in Times of Loss, Change, and Career Transition
Dr. Natalie Grigorian: And I think a lot of us forget that we have our inner vitality and that we can nurture it to regain health and be empowered. And then in translation, we may conceive a baby, or we may conceive a project, or even a job, right? Because I think not only earlier in the year when we were working with a lot of patients who were trying to conceive, but we were also navigating the difficulties of a lot of cuts or being laid off in the job market here in DC. And so that was also very hard. That was like a shock to the heart for many of the patients who were coming in and using some of the similar practices. We were able to help patients have faith that they were going to find the next career step that was appropriate for them in this time and space. And right now I want to say all of them got a job. I think everyone found a job off the top of my mind. And it really came in re-imagining how they could use the tools that they already knew and then redirect them in a way that served them now.
Shock, Survival Mode, and Why Restoring Alignment Matters
Dr. Julie Lopez: I love it. Well, and you can imagine, I mean, shock is a normal state that we go into when something changes all of a sudden, especially if there’s a big loss, it just happens. And you know what happens? This part of our brain literally shuts down as it should, right? If there’s a danger or emergency, you want to be able to run really fast, and you want to be able to do the things that are going to help you survive. But if you, if logically what you know is, oh my gosh, I need to provide for my family. I need to be able to take care of, you know, and do these basic things. I need a job.
Entering the job market in a shocked state of mind without your executive functioning is probably just… even logically, not going to produce great results. So I love to hear your data that every single one of the people that you brought in and got them aligned and out of the shock state and more into the place of receiving, I’ll say that they got what they were looking for, which is amazing.
And I get to share, it’s right behind your head, Aetherium. Aetherium is the name of her practice, which is not just her, but also other people who are helping to do this incredible work.
Dr. Natalie Grigorian: Thank you. Yeah, no, it’s, it’s such an honor to have a place in DC. There’s a saying in Chinese medicine that man stands between heaven and earth. And oftentimes we’re out of line with that divine connection and the materiality of the earthly world. So my goal when patients come in is how do we bring alignment?
And, when I say heavenly, I don’t mean it in a religious way, but the heavenly of every, yeah, but everything around us, right. To be able to hear our higher self and be able to receive it.
So it’s part of or integrated into all of my treatments that I work with, with each patient.
Redefining Prosperity as Flow, Health, and Connection
Dr. Julie Lopez: So I’m going to use my own terms, and I am not trained in traditional Chinese medicine, but I hear that, and I think about prosperity. And not prosperity just with money. Cause I know people hear prosperity and they think about financial wealth, but wealth in all of its forms, wealth of a peaceful and calm mind, like the wealth of good friends and relationships, or connection and community, like the wealth of a healthy body, right. That, that can move and flow and isn’t stuck or rigid, right? I think, at times when people have deep wounds, and obviously we work in the mental and psychological health space, but the scar tissue itself can create blockages that don’t allow people to move and flow in their best state.
So when you said all the things you just said about heaven and prosperity and all these things, I just think of like the ideal state of being. And you mentioned the word faith, which is so powerful, right? That imagining as if… it is super powerful in our bodies.
Restoring Faith, Hope, and Trust in the Body
Dr. Natalie Grigorian: Yeah. I think it’s really hard to have, but you don’t, you don’t use the word faith, hope when we’re suffering. And so when patients usually come in, they’ve lost hope or faith or trusting their body in being able to move through life. And many times it might be fertility, but it can show up in other ways, too. It can be, you know, digestive issues or whatever blockages that patient is coming in.
And so when we’re able to listen and then give patients tools, like, well, this is how we can understand what these signals are saying. And then we empower patients to then be confident in their body. That, to me, is a really key step of being able to move through life with ease.
Meeting Life’s Challenges With Ease and Presence
Dr. Julie Lopez: I love it. Of course it is. Of course, it is right.
And we see it in these like really dramatic movies where someone’s hyper-trained as like James Bond and like really hard things are happening, and they’re in a state of ease, even though they’re doing kind of, and facing incredibly hard things. And we have the ability to do that and to maximize that. And I think when I see you and your work, I think that’s what you’re doing.
Dr. Natalie Grigorian: Yes. Yeah. I always tell people I cannot change the stressors of life. I cannot change what is happening in the outside world, globally, locally, or in your home.
But what I want you to be able to do is be able to walk through life, letting those stressors not get deep inside. You can acknowledge whatever we’re experiencing, and then how do we move through it like a wave, right? We all will feel every emotion. I don’t want people to be… not feeling the sadness of life or the joys of life or the fears and, you know, they all are appropriate. And then how do we move through that so that we can face whatever challenges we’re facing, feeling empowered and feeling confident we can move through it.
Dr. Julie Lopez: I love it.And I love how you do that with traditional Chinese medicine. It’s amazing. Yeah.
Any last things you would want to say? Because believe it or not, we’re going to have to shift gears in just a moment to hear your, let me say, top three tips for nurturing fertility and all areas of life, which I love.
Dr. Natalie Grigorian: I would say one of the, just in general, I find that the human body is resilient. And if anyone is listening to this podcast and feeling hopeless, trust that your body can overcome even some of the hardest obstacles in life.And I really appreciate the work that you do at the Viva Center. I mean, it’s one of the reasons why we refer a lot of patients to you or to your entire team, because it takes a team sometimes to overcome things, and different modalities and different tools will help us move through whatever obstacles we have in life. And once we’re able to move through it, right. We always say in Chinese medicine, like move like water. Water through time creates the Grand Canyon, right?
Dr. Julie Lopez: I love that. I love that.
So, even if, so how do we flow or go through the obstacle, go through the boulder or around the boulder, and either through the work that I do here, acupuncture, Chinese medicine, and integrative work, or the Viva Center that is beautifully allowing people to connect with their body and mind and move through that as well. We can all overcome that boulder that’s in our life, that obstacle.
Three Simple, Powerful Ways to Nurture Fertility
Dr. Julie Lopez: Amen. I love it. I love it. Okay. Let’s hear it. Let’s hear your top three tips.
Dr. Natalie Grigorian: I feel like my top three tips are really simple and very effective.
So first, I would say, try to eat as we circle back seasonally, locally. We see in science that food that comes locally is much more vibrant and rich in nutrients than the ones that have been traveling for a great distance. So not only is it good for you, for the environment, but you can actually also be attuned to the season, right? This is a time in the winter, more of the roots compared to having all the salads in the summer, right? So just think of that, and how would your body respond if it’s like cold outside? What would be more nurturing in that season of life?
And then the second tip, which is a much harder tip, but I find that is very important, is forgiveness. Forgiveness is an energy that is much easier. Oh, let me just start a little bit. Holding a grudge takes a lot of energy, and it’s much less energy to forgive. The process can be very hard, especially since we’re conditioned to repress emotions and hold things in, and like what is appropriate or how do we have these conversations, maybe with people who we love, our family members, or other people in our life who have what we feel wronged us. And so the question is, how do we shift from being in a mind of blaming others for what has happened and then creating space? Because, especially when it comes to fertility, in Chinese medicine, there’s a connection between the heart and the uterus called the bao mai. And through this vessel, you can see how emotions really affect the uterus. And so if you have a womb that is filled with a lot of emotional trauma or stuckness, then how, the question I ask, how do you imagine new life coming in? And when we’re able to create an emptier space, we allow new opportunities to come in. And I’ve seen that not just with conception, but also with just different parts of conceiving life, right? What might be a project, it might be a business, it might be a relationship. How do we welcome someone in?
Dr. Julie Lopez: Love that. Love that.
Dr. Natalie Grigorian: And then the last one is simple, which is sleep. I think sleep is something that we often just like, I don’t know, neglect.I’m not saying that I haven’t had my fair share of having a good time. And those are always welcome with good friends or family. But on a day-to-day basis, are we having good nightly hygiene? What does your routine look like? Are you doomscrolling? What is our addiction to screens like? Are we good about closing off our laptops and work? Is there a beginning, middle, and end to our day? Because now, I think what it was, Netflix’s motto was time, or sleep is their biggest hurdle to making money, or something of that nature. So it clearly is tapping into our addictive nature of not closing the end of the day. So something as simple as sleep can be very healing and regenerative. And on the flip side, if someone has insomnia or is having trouble sleeping, then the question is, how do we use maybe herbs or Chinese medicine to help the body nudge its way back to that cyclical circadian rhythm that it naturally has?
Creating Space for Abundance
Dr. Julie Lopez: I love that.Okay.
So three tips for nurturing fertility in any area of life are rest, good quality sleep, and forgiveness; super important for clearing energy in your body. And then lastly, eating seasonally and locally for the absolute maximum nutritional vibrancy. I love it. And I love you and your work and all that you’re doing at your center. And I just appreciate so much that you were able to come on the podcast and change perspective a little bit on what it can look like to feel stuck in your life in a certain area, or shift it and move it into a place that’s more open and inviting of abundance on all the different levels.
So thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Whole by Design.
For all you listeners, I hope it has left you feeling inspired to toss out the labels, embrace new perspectives, and take one step closer to the joy and clarity that is waiting for you. Let’s spread the message, subscribe, review, and share the episode with someone who could benefit from a stigma-dropping approach to mental fitness today.
