Recently I completed a pelvic care training called Holistic Pelvic Care with Tami Kent. HPC is a hands-on, hands-in modality that addresses physical & energetic imbalances that block a woman’s pelvic energy/ physical flow and core vitality. It can be done in-person with touch from me to you, or online as a remote healing practice.
What I love about this modality is that it was pioneered by a pelvic floor physical therapist who saw what was missing in women's health care. She realized just how much could be accessed in the womb space: creativity, sexuality, unresolved trauma, and lineage (ancestors), along with addressing physical imbalances. Holistic Pelvic Care is what's missing from routine Western medical care, which generally focuses on fixing problems. HPC, in contrast, serves as preventative care, and connects women with the rich landscape of the pelvic bowl.
Here's what I've learned in the past few months of practicing Holistic Pelvic Care:
Massaging the inside of the pelvic bowl is really important to relieve the physical and energetic imbalances that can lead to disease.
The muscles of the pelvic floor carry a lot of tension, just like our shoulders. Massaging this tissue helps to unwind fascia, giving our pelvic organs more space and relieving tension patterns. Doing internal massage with caring presence helps relieve congestion, which is the precursor to disease. It can help with pelvic pain, pelvic muscle engagement, menstrual imbalances, sexual health, and long-term vaginal/womb health.When we touch the vulva and vagina with presence, love, and no agenda, miracles can happen.
So often we touch the vulva and vagina with an agenda, or with no presence. An agenda = I want an orgasm (or a partner touching us with intent to give pleasure or enter us). No presence = a PAP smear, or putting in a tampon. Very rarely do we experience touch that isn't sexual, or isn't wanting something from us, in some way. Receiving holistic pelvic care, (from yourself or from a practitioner) is a way to simply be with what's there in the pelvic space. Our tissues store emotions, traumas, ancestral stories, and our experiences. So not only does pelvic massage open pathways on a physical level, it can help us heal on emotional, energetic, and spiritual levels too. It can encourage root wisdom, self-care, healing, and good boundaries.There really is a yoni-verse in there.
What I love about immersing in this work is how different each women's pelvic bowl is. It's an access point to the energy of the ovaries and womb. For some women, we work with boundary repair and giving their No a voice. For some women, we immediately connect to an overactive right ovary, which might connect to doing and holding too much in life. For others, they might sense an exhausted left ovary, which might mean giving too much and not caring for and mothering themselves enough. Listening to each organ might sound esoteric, but I'm surprised again and again at how much intuitive information is available in the pelvic bowl. Honoring this space always yields deep wisdom.I need immense slowness when it comes to internal touch. In turn, I give that slowness and boundary repair to my clients.
At the hands-on portion of the training, I received pelvic work from two students. I let both know that I'm slow; that I've experienced gynecological and sexual trauma, and it's very important for me to know that I can go at my pace, and that I can stop and pause at any moment. I celebrate that I know this about myself and can do things on my terms - it's super important in my continued healing.
It can be so hard for some of us to say No or to continuously advocate for ourselves if someone doesn't quite get our request. That's why I build so much consent into my hands-on work with women. As someone who experiences freeze and flight, I know this feeling well in my own body, and can sense it in clients. Often when I ask women if they are ready for me to do internal work, they say yes, but I can sense their body is a "maybe, I'm not sure." In these moments I lean into my trauma resolution skills, to slow down and really work at the body's pace. It's such a celebration when we can advocate for our bodies. It can be frustrating to our minds—they often have an agenda and want to do the thing we came here to do. But when we slow down for our slowest part, real healing unfolds. We honor ourselves in new ways and release old traumas.
We can do ancestral healing through the pelvis.
The pelvis and womb space intimately connect us to our lineage. We were actually inside not only our mother, but inside our grandmothers as well - our mothers were in utero with all of their eggs, including the one that made us! So many of us are fractured from our lineages due to immigration and/or families that split up. We might not know much about our great-grandparents and beyond, and we might not be able to feel into healthy ancestors who could support us.
Through connecting with the ovaries during HPC, we can reach back into maternal and paternal lineages to see who might be available to support us. We have so many ancestors, and some of them were definitely healers. Some of them were women who were so similar to this. Some of them were well men, or have become well on the other side. What might it be like to feel this health and support at your back?
We can also feel into differentiation, which is so important. So often we have stories (conscious or unconscious) that because something happened to our parents (illness, trauma) it will befall us as well. Doing this ancestral work can help us realize that while we are connected to our ancestors, we don't have to be them. We can choose a new path.
I could gush about what's available through HPC all day! I'd love for you to experience it for yourself.
I'm now offering in-person and remote holistic pelvic care sessions.
In remote sessions we work with the energy, and/or I can teach you internal massage for increased health and vitality. At in-person sessions we work with the body, moving toward internal massage and healing.
If you’re interested, let’s connect! You can set up a free consultation with me below.