Where Science, Spirit, and Self-Trust Come Together
You spent years trying to make it happen. IVF. Trying everything. Doing everything ‘right.’
You showed up. You pushed forward. You tried to control the outcome.
And still… something didn’t happen the way you expected.
In this Mother’s Day episode, I’m sitting down with Ariane de Bonvoisin, the author of Spirit Mama.
What begins as a conversation about fertility and motherhood expands into something so much bigger.
Because this isn’t just about having a child.
It’s about grief.
It’s about surrender.
It’s about the parts of you that feel incomplete and what happens when life invites you to redefine what creation really means.
Ariane shares her personal journey of trying to conceive a second child for five years through both science and spirituality and the profound shift that came when she realized her path was not about control but contribution.
This episode is for the woman who feels like something didn’t go according to plan.
The one holding grief, guilt, or questions she cannot answer.
The one who is quietly wondering what now.
Because maybe the story is not over. Maybe it is just asking you to create in a different way.
In this episode:
Why asking “why” can keep you stuck in suffering
How grief actually moves through the body and why that matters
The connection between self love and your ability to create
How shame, guilt, and unforgiveness block your energy
Why motherhood is an energy and not just a role
The truth about being “Superwoman” and why it does not serve you
How to reconnect with your body, your truth, and your creative power
The shift from control to surrender and what opens up when you do
Quotes from this episode:
“Grief is an emotion. Emotion is energy in motion.”- Ariane de Bonvoisin
“You can’t have love for a child and no self-love for yourself.” - Ariane de Bonvoisin
“It’s not even a cleanup job, it’s just a love job.” - Ariane de Bonvoisin
“I think it’s an epidemic of disconnection that’s happening right now.” - Becca Powers
“My kids want from me is my presence. It is a spiritual gift to give to your children.” – Becca Powers
About Ariane de Bonvoisin
Ariane de Bonvoisin is an author, elite coach, and speaker who helps people navigate major life transitions, with a focus on fertility and motherhood through her Spirit Mama book series. She lives between New York, Switzerland, and Cape Town with her partner Alfie and their 12-year-old son Everest.
She has worked with global organizations such as Google, Twitter, Morgan Stanley, Investec, The IDB, KPMG, L’Oréal, Amazon, Nestlé, and Red Bull, and has spoken at events including Oprah’s Conference and Maria Shriver’s Women’s Conference. Beyond the corporate world, Ariane works with schools and teachers in the US and worldwide, doing readings and fun workshops with kids and educators, speaking for the ASBO, and keynoting at Board of Education events. Ariane has also delivered a TED Talk titled The Skills We Need to Teach Our Kids and has appeared on major media outlets including NBC’s Today Show, the CBS Early Show, CNN, and ABC News Now.
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Website: https://www.beccapowers.com
Instagram: @beccapowers1313
LinkedIn: Becca Powers
Facebook: Becca Powers
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The Dragonfly Effect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1C4z83krsn/
Get the book:
A Return to Radiance: https://www.beccapowers.com/a-return-to-radiance
Book Becca to speak: https://www.beccapowers.com/keynotes
Free resource:
The High Performer's Path eBook: https://www.beccapowers.com/
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Becca Powers: Welcome to another episode of The Empowered Half Hour, and for this episode, it's gonna be our Mother's Day episode, and I'm so excited to bring you today's guest because well, you'll find out in just a second. Her book is on topic. Mother's Day. So I'd like to introduce speaker, coach and author of Spirit Mama Arianne Day Zen.
And I may have mispronounced it, I've been practicing, but if I have, please feel free to correct me. But welcome to the show.
Ariane de Bonvoisin: Thank you, Becca. You did a wonderful job. Absolutely wonderful. Hi Marks.
Becca Powers: Yes. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. So I have been looking forward to interviewing you and we've had a wonderful pre-conversation before going live, but I would love to hear about Spirit Mama. Like how did Spirit Mama come around? Why is it important to you? I just wanna hear everything about it.
A Journey of Conception, Surrender, and Soul Calling
Ariane de Bonvoisin: Yeah, so my book Spirit Mama feels like it was my second child. So I was very lucky to have my first child. Everest is his name. He's a 12-year-old boy, and I had him when I was 40 and he came pretty much the first time we tried naturally.
You know, he was in a rush. I'll be honest with you, Becca, I had already been communicating with him even before I met my husband.
Becca Powers: I just got the goosebumps.
Ariane de Bonvoisin: Yeah. So I had the feeling of something or a soul around me, and so I had already called him in and then I was like, listen buddy, if you wanna come through, you need to tell me who your dad is.
And so I feel like I empowered him or her. I didn't know at the time to actually go and put my partner right in front of me. And I met my partner very shortly afterwards. So there was already something spiritual going on between me and this soul that was coming through, and I had been on a spiritual path probably for 25 years before.
It was something that had guided me through my childhood through being a young adult. So I always knew that fertility for me had a lot more to do than just the physical or the emotional. That for me, the missing piece was going to be how do I have a really conscious conception, conscious pregnancy, conscious birth, and how do I become a really conscious parent?
So that was always in the back of my mind. I never thought I'd write a book on this, but then the universe challenged me for sure that a way of doing that we wanted to have a second child. And the second child did not show up in the form that we expected. And for about five years, we tried everything alternative that you could possibly imagine, and we tried, of course IVF and everything scientific as well.
And during that process I interviewed a couple of hundred people, healers, doctors, IVF clinics, a lot of couples, a lot of parents in a dozen countries. And I went looking for the missing pieces. I went looking for things that were not mainstream. I went looking for things that no one had told me.
I went looking for why is it that in Africa they do things differently? Or in South America they have a very different, very connected view of what it means to conceive a child that we don't necessarily have in the west.
And so I was doing it really for myself. I've gotta be honest with you, right? I mean, it was for me and my journey and my selfish reason of bringing in a child. And then when that didn't happen, of course, I had miscarriages. I went through my own grieving process.
But on the other side of that, Becca, it felt like that journey wasn't complete, and I knew it was complete on the physical level, but it wasn't complete on the contribution level.
And it became really clear to me that there are many ways to be in the motherhood energy, and yes, one of them is to conceive and even birth a child. Others are to adopt a child, to foster a child, to be a stepparent to a child, to build them, birth a business, birth a book, birth a documentary, birth an idea.
And I was just like, I wonder if my incompleteness is that I need to help other women bring in children and I need to help other women become a mother and not just have my next second child, but to actually be part of hopefully the solution.
And so the book is everything I read, everything I heard, everything I learned, all the interviews I did, obviously my own personal journey and things that I would have loved to have known and would have loved to have tried at the beginning.
It feels very much like I went from being in control and kind of wanting my way to really surrendering and just go, okay, show me the way. Like, show me what you want me to do with all of this knowledge, because clearly it cannot be wasted just on my journey.
Grief, Loss, and What the Body Remembers
Becca Powers: Yes. There's so much in what you're saying. My French bulldog Bella is right underneath my desk today.
Ariane de Bonvoisin: My golden retriever waffle is right there too.
Becca Powers: Today's a dog day, but there's so much wonderfulness to unpack in what you shared from the pain, to the insight, to the curiosity, to the actual creation.
As a woman, I wrote about it, just a small piece about it, and one of the books that I wrote, Harness Your Inner CEO, I wrote about a choice to terminate a pregnancy when I was 17 years old. And thankfully I was still able to have children after that. And the reason I bring that up is because you mentioned the grieving process.
You mentioned miscarriages. I also had a miscarriage. And I think whether you cannot conceive at all, or you have conceived and you've lost a child either by a choice you've had to make or by a choice not of your own, there's a sadness that takes place for women and I think a lot of women hold that pain inside.
And so I want to ask you a question on that, but then I want to transition to that there is something you can do with that energy and turn it to good. But I want to start with, I'm sure you've talked to lots of women too who have lost a child.
So if any of the listeners, especially since it's Mother's Day, I know many mothers are probably celebrating their motherhood, but there might be mothers or women listening to this that haven't been able to step into their motherhood. And if we could just talk about the grieving for just a moment so that we can spend the rest of the half talking on all the beauty.
Ariane de Bonvoisin: Of course.
If I had to summarize it in a few things, the worst question that I asked myself, and I would highly encourage people to never ask this question is just one word. It's why.
Because the why is a mental question, and the mind cannot understand why it happened or hasn't happened or happened the way it did.
And grief doesn't heal and happen through the mind. So the why question is a real hook for suffering.
So that's the first question that I really needed to drop was why me, or why my body, or why us, or why. You just gotta have the mind not be the one in control of the grieving process.
The second thing I would say is to drop into the body, even though you kind of want to get out of the body because the body didn't do what it was supposed to or something happened to the body, is to still swim, walk, dance, get in a bath, but drop back into the body because grief happens through the body.
When we try and escape or get out of the body, or we live above the neck, the grief, you kind of hold the grief in and actually the body wants to let it go. It wants to move. Grief is an emotion, emotion, energy in motion.
So grief itself needs to move.
So for me, what I would say is it's a personal journey. I wouldn't say that I know what applies for everyone, but removing the mental side and dropping back into the body is probably the first place I would start.
Becca Powers: I love that and I think that'll transition us very nicely to creation because the womb in a woman is our center of creation. We are creation and that all of what we give birth to, from children to projects to love, come from our womb.
Ariane de Bonvoisin: I think the thyroid, which is such an important hormone for women, it's such an important part of conceiving and giving birth. The thyroid is the creative hormone and it's no coincidence that it sits between the mouth and the heart.
So you need both to be able to create and be your most empowered self.
I feel that a lot of women are quite shut down on creativity even before they want to conceive a child. The creative can just be what I believe, what I think, my spiritual journey.
I know so many people who are in the spiritual closet where their spouse doesn't know, their parents don't know, their colleagues don't know. The body doesn't like that. That is not regulating yourself. It's kind of lying to yourself.
The body's like, but you are this creative, beautiful, spiritual woman. And yet it's something you're hiding.
And I find sometimes the fertility journey, the conception journey, before that even happens, there's an invitation to go. How are you lying to yourself? 'cause the body doesn't like this and, and you know, babies show up in the body, so the body needs to be filled with that. How are you hating or disapproving of yourself?
Right?
Becca Powers: Wow.
Ariane de Bonvoisin: Very important question to ask yourself, especially before creating an environment which is supposed to be full of love for a child. You can't have love for a child and no self-love for yourself.
Okay? How have I not forgiven myself? For miscarrying, for getting divorced, for terminating. How have I not forgiven my, the womb and the body can handle all of that, but it cannot handle the unforgiveness. It cannot handle the shame. It cannot handle the guilt. Do you see?
So I find there's so much. It's not even a cleanup job, it's just a love job. You know, this is not a five point to-do list. It's just like, I'm gonna love my past, love my experience, love my choices, love my decisions, love who I am in the world.
And I've always said, you know, it's why I called the book Spirit Mama. It's sort of how do you combine this energy of spirituality? Whatever you wanna call that, Becca. If it's nature, God, love, consciousness, the divine source, grace. I mean, we can keep going. All of them point to love, right?
And so for me, love especially of yourself, the body, it's like the foundation for the motherhood energy. That's why I called it Spirit Mama because those two things together needed to be combined.
I think the other thing I would say too is just to set the stage for the creative, however that's gonna come through for you.
I'm gonna speak for myself personally. You know, I was the superwoman, and I don't mean that in an egotistical way. I mean that in an archetypal way where it's like, you know, I had the right boyfriend, I had the right apartment in New York. I had a big job in New York. I was running a $500 million fund at 28 years old.
You know, I was on the Today Show. I was in Forbes. You see, I even need to take a breath. Right? The body didn't like it that much. Oh gee, the body didn't like it that much.
But you know, the archetype of the superwoman is not the archetype of the mother, and we think the archetype of superwoman is the archetype of the mother.
And I needed to unravel that even before my first child was born because it's not what our children are asking of us. They're asking for the humanity and the gentleness and the forgiveness and the authenticity. Do you see?
They're not asking for superwoman. And so the more energetic I had towards that, the more I, it just wasn't happening.
Presence, Motherhood, and Awakening Awareness
Becca Powers: I relate to that so much because in my own overachieving, high achieving woman state and mothering during it, I remember a period of my life where my kids were already in middle school and I realized that all this trying to hit the gold star and all the different buckets robbed them of my presence.
It was, I still tear up about it today because I remember the exact moment when I noticed it. It was like my soul. It's like one of those moments in time where everything slows down and you're just seeing things differently.
And I just remembered, I'm like, all my kids want from me.
And it's such a spiritual gift to give that to your children.
Ariane de Bonvoisin: It really is.
And it is. And you know, for those who are like, oh, I'm not too sure about this spiritual stuff, or even the words, I always sort of say, you know, it's just an energy. And if there's one thing babies are, and kids are, is like their energy scanners.
They are scanning your energy.
And so I say that so that we scan our own energy, right?
It's sort of that energy. It's not really you. It's what you think you need to be, but it's not really you.
And so to me, the energy of conception is the energy of creation. But beyond that, it's the energy of love in all its forms.
And so for people who are going through fertility challenges, of which I was one, I relate to this, the bigger challenge was how I treated myself and the things I said to myself and how I disengaged even from my husband sometimes.
How do I stay connected to the energy of love? Because love is a lot closer to conception and creation energy than not.
It's not IVF and it's not hormones and it's not yoga and it's not acupuncture, although I believe in all of those. There's something bigger going on.
And that's why for me, I wanted to write the book because there must be missing pieces when there's still so much pain and challenges.
Becca Powers: I think the emotional piece is one of the main pieces that's missing.
And especially when you have problems conceiving or you have lost a child, the shame, the guilt, those are some of the lowest frequency emotions that we can express as humans.
Ariane de Bonvoisin: I always say the antidote to shame is honor. I honor the fact that this is my body and this is my age and this is what my body shows up as.
To go from shame to honor, to go from guilt to forgiveness.
It's not a huge step.
I feel sometimes the children that are gonna come through us or that are going to be around us, they're already teaching us about those arcs before sometimes they've even shown up.
We are going to need to step into that level of emotional mastery for them.
So it's more like, knock, knock, are you ready for me?
The emotional side is a huge piece.
And it's doing it with a lot of gentleness, which as a superwoman, we are not trained to be gentle and we are not trained to be patient.
And there's so many archetypes. The addict that pushes and pushes and pushes.
I want, and I want, and I'm gonna do it no matter what.
This is the one thing in my life I really cannot control.
It was so humbling.
But if I can't control it, what can I rest into? What can hold me together?
Our relationship to life itself is the holding for self.
And life is asking you to come back into relationship with it.
Ariane de Bonvoisin: I interviewed people from Southern Africa, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bhutan, and India.
I was looking for, is there a commonality?
The thing that most hit me in a good way was how connected some people are and how disconnected some people are to Mother Earth.
Mother Earth, the energy of the planet, the seasons, grounding, water, rivers, oceans, trees, barefoot on the earth, the stars, the moon.
Those things are not what you think of when you're on a fertility journey.
And yet more and more I kept hearing it's like you've gotta get outside, you've gotta get back in touch with the cycle of the earth and nature.
How connected you are to Mother Earth is also how connected you are to your own motherhood energy.
Becca Powers: I think it's the energy and conscious shift that we just need for humanity.
It's such a healthy reminder that things are not limited.
We can reconnect with the limitless possibilities and infinite intelligence.
And all of a sudden you're like, things are flowing again.
Ariane de Bonvoisin: They are also, you know, in a good way. They love their bodies. They love their, you know, their breasts. They love their bums, they love their thighs. They love, like they are in their body.
You know, there is no like disconnection with the body. There's an honoring, there's a, you know, they've got a. Colors. They colors, they, they know that the journey of conceiving comes through the body. And so the, the level of health I'm gonna see health esteem could be health esteem too. Self-esteem is very high
Becca Powers: in that. Health esteem.
Ariane de Bonvoisin: Health esteem in those, in those countries, it's very high. And so having been around those women, it's sort of like, it's an infectious energy. Like you become who you spend time with. So I can't tell you, I haven't gone to analyze it. I do know that they find it easier. I also think that their, their belief structure. Let's talk about that for a second.
Becca Powers: You know? Yes, I'd love to.
Ariane de Bonvoisin: They would never use words like infertility. They would never use words like, you know, trying to conceive. Those are quite harsh on the body. Like I remember I never used those words, and when I coach people, I immediately like change the language and the beliefs because, because you're, you're locking something in as being the reality and there is no the reality, you know?
And in more of a conscious spiritual perspective, there's, there's your reality, which can change at any time. But there's also the miracle field, I mean. Conceiving is a miracle, and being alive is a miracle, and love is a miracle. And so it's like you kind of have to choose, am I going to, you know, make a stand for my reality or am I gonna step into the miracle field reality?
And I feel a lot of the people that I interviewed that, you know, had wonderful journeys. They didn't fight to prove that they were too old or that this how long they'd been trying, or it just, it wasn't in their conversation. They were in the conversation today and today was everything and anything was possible
Becca Powers: that is just like, you could see me smiling. It's just like, I think it's the energy and conscious shift that we just need for humanity all together. And it's, it's even for, you know, my, myself and some of my daily, weekly check-ins is I can, you know, I'm human. I spiral all the time and I, I see things through like the limited lens of like what I can control and what I can impact.
And it's just such a healthy, this conversation is so healthy in general, but it's such a healthy reminder to be like. That's to remind yourself that that is limited and that you can stop yourself and reconnect with the limitless possibilities and infinite intelligence, and that there's a miracle surrounding us.
The mi, like we're breathing. Like it's such an energetic shift when you can go there and then all of a sudden you're like. My God, things are flowing again.
Ariane de Bonvoisin: Yeah,
Becca Powers: they're not, so
Mental Boundaries and Frequency Shifts
Ariane de Bonvoisin: I always say Becca, it's like, you know, it's like you have to have like two bodyguards at the doorway of your mind. And sometimes in coaching, I get people to draw them for me, you know, and they draw the Avengers or the Hulk or whatever.
Becca Powers: Yeah.
Ariane de Bonvoisin: But I literally imagine two bodyguards and it's like, Nope, sorry. You're not coming in. You're not coming in that thought. Even though it's a mainstream thought and it's what? Women have told you to believe or your mother has told you is true. I kind of go, Nope, not my choice. And it literally, it's like a nightclub not allowed in.
This is a really cool, fun place. It's, uh, you, yep. You can come in. But you see it's like, it's so important because we are being bombarded with what to think, what to believe, what it means about our fertility, our body, our age. And it's like, you know, they are, they are their thoughts, their beliefs, they're not facts.
And so if they're thoughts and belief, you can be a magnet for them. Oh yes, come on in. Come on in. Or you can kind of go, you know what? Not a match for me. Not a match for me. I'm not on that elevator floor. Sorry, I'm in the penthouse. Those are basement. Those are basement thoughts and beliefs. You know, you just, you didn't reach me.
Becca Powers: Yeah, I'm up here so I
Ariane de Bonvoisin: can't be, I'm at a higher frequency, but it's hard because we live in a world where we are bombarded with the consensus view of life, especially fertility. And I sort of go, you don't have to take that on to be in choice. Consciousness is much higher frequency than being in the consensus consciousness.
Becca Powers: I love that reframe. You know, here we are. 30 minutes is almost over. Almost here. We're almost over. I feel like I could talk to you forever. Um, but I always like to end with an empowering message for the guests. Um, I'll turn it over to you. What empowering message would you wanna share with the listeners today?
Ariane de Bonvoisin: I think what I wanna share is I'd like to invite everyone to have what I call a foot in both worlds. And what I mean by that is that you can be very practical and you, you can do IVF and you can freeze your eggs and you can do everything that is highly practical. You can be highly spiritual and highly conscious and highly connected to source and highly aware of your thoughts, and it's just not a choice.
And, and to just have a level of open-mindedness that is bigger than has ever been possible because there are things. There might be one thing that is just an invitation for you to try that feels so far out of what you might possibly do, that it might have worked for someone else, and it could be the thing that works for you to, to not have any, like, oh my God, that's not for me, or, I would never do that, or I've never tried that, but to just have this level of openness, right?
This openness does create children in more ways than one, but to have a level of open-minded and open-heartedness and go, you know what? Whatever it takes, I'll try it. Open mind, open heart, and to not, to not judge either thing. They're not, they're not different worlds, right? It's just to not judge it to go anything's possible.
I'll look at it all. And to do it in the rest of your life too. You know? It's not just in the, in the conception, fertility journey.
Becca Powers: Yes. That's where just in the Yes, where I was taking your stuff too. I was like, this is great. Where, where else does this apply for me? And just go, let me try that. You know what, why not? If it can work for me, why not? I'll find out.
Becca Powers: Why not?
Ariane de Bonvoisin: I wonder.
Becca Powers: I love it. Well, let's transition to how can listeners find your book and how can they follow you?
Ariane de Bonvoisin: Of course. So of course the book is of course, anywhere books are sold. Amazon, we do have a website. It's https://spiritmamabook.com/. You can see a few sample chapters. You can see the table of contents. Just to get a little bit of a sense of, you can hear a little bit more about my own story. We're on Instagram, also, spirit Mama Official. And then if you wanna just stay in touch with me, my website is my full name, https://www.arianedebonvoisin.com/.
You said it so much better than me.
Ariane de Bonvoisin: The other thing too, I wanted to say is at the back of this book is a manifesto on basically everything that I wanted to summarize for what it means to be a Spirit mama and we're giving that manifesto away for free. So you can go on the Instagram channel or on the website, and you can download the Spirit Mama Manifesto.
It'll give you a little bit of a sense for what the book is. So please enjoy that and share it with anyone else you know, who hasn't maybe shared the interview, of course, but share the manifesto as well.
Becca Powers: That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for being a guest. I know I can't stop smiling right now, so I hope the listeners feel the same. Thank you again for coming on.
Ariane de Bonvoisin: Thank you, Becca. What a pleasure. Thank you.
