Episode 63: Holistic Pelvic Health with Kate Coletti

Pelvic health care is one of my favorite tools in my trauma-healing toolbox. Pelvic health care, including pelvic floor physical therapy, is part of my daily Nervous System Hygiene practice.

Due to messages from religion, shame surrounding menstruation, and society’s taboos about the female body, I was disconnected from my pelvis and pelvic floor for most of my life. That part of my body was for sex, having babies, and bleeding once a month, but beyond that, I had no connection to my pelvis.

I sought the help of a pelvic floor physical therapist after I was diagnosed with hypertonic pelvic floor dysfunction in early 2019. I had no idea this therapy would become an integral part of my own reconnection to myself, my womb space, my root. I had no clue how beneficial this connection would be to my nervous system.

I didn’t know that the Vagus Nerve goes all the way down to the cervix. I didn’t know that the autonomic nervous system in a chronic sympathetic (fight/flight) state led to my tense but weak pelvic floor. I learned that I stored a lot of trauma and tension down there. Checking in with my pelvic floor is one of the main ways I check in with my body now.

As I reconnected to my pelvic floor and my womb space, my nervous system gradually calmed down more and more. My intuition grew stronger. Pelvic health care helps me get out of my head and into my body, and I’m so grateful!

Now, I am no longer afraid of or disconnected from my pelvis.

This Week’s Guest

Kate Coletti is a mother, a midwife, a teacher, and a healer.

Kate helps women discover their body’s potential and heal from birth trauma or just life. She’s been a dedicated student and practitioner of manual therapies since 2001, a teacher of prenatal yoga and birth preparations since 2005, and she began catching babies as a licensed midwife in California in 2007.

Today Kate has a full-time healing practice that focuses on women’s health. She has advanced training in holistic pelvic care, pelvic floor rehabilitation, visceral manipulation, craniosacral therapy, and Arvigo techniques of Maya abdominal therapy, along with midwifery experience and intuitive understanding to help you get to the root of your pelvic issues and bring deep and lasting healing.

Her private practice is based in Sonoma, California, though she loves to take workshops and healing offerings to women’s gatherings and retreat settings around the country.

Links

• FREE Guide to Heal Your Pelvic Floor
• Work with Kate
• Kate’s Enlightened Birth 6-Week Course
• Wild Feminine: Finding Power, Spirit, & Joy in the Female Body by Tami Lynn Kent
• FREE Training: How to Hack Your Nervous System with Cold Plunges
• Subscribe!
• Follow me on Instagram

Show Notes

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In this episode, Holistic Pelvic Health practitioner, healer, and midwife Kate Coletti and I…

• share Lindsey’s journey of treating and healing hypertonic pelvic floor dysfunction
• discuss the chronic disconnection from our pelvic bowls and pelvic floors
• talk about holding stress, tension, and trauma in the pelvic bowl and pelvic floor
• share how reconnecting with the pelvic bowl/pelvic floor echoes into the rest of a woman’s life and creates more openness and less rigidity
• talk about the energetics that are stored in the pelvic floor and fascia and why it’s important to “clean it out”
• discuss various manifestations of tension, heaviness and trauma in the pelvic floor such as pelvic floor weakness, displacement of organs, prolapse, and more
• explain the process of mapping and sweeping the pelvic bowl to clear out stagnancy and nurture the connection to our pelvises
• discuss releasing tension from the jaw, face, and throat as a way to begin to release tension from the pelvis
• share the correlation between the state of the pelvic floor and the common state of women who carry so much for everyone and how reclaiming parts of ourselves can increase pelvic health
• talk about Yoni steaming, self-care bodywork, fascial release, pelvic mapping, breast massage, and other forms of self-care
• discuss menstruation in a patriarchal culture
• talk about free bleeding, menstrual cups, disks, organic tampons, and more body-friendly options for our blood and using options that support your pelvic floor/pelvic bowl
• share about the natural cycle healing that can happen when menstruation is viewed as a powerful spiritual and physical force vs. an inconvenience
• discuss menstruating on the full moon vs. the new moon
• talk about how our connection to our pelvic bowls and cycles can heal sisterhood

Transcript

hello, everyone. Welcome to the very last episode of 2021. I’m so glad you’re here with me today. And the topic of today’s podcast is something that I have wanted to talk about since I started this podcast in October of 2020, and we are going to be talking about pelvic. Health. And you may not know if this has a connection to trauma or not, but let me assure you that it does.

So before I introduce today’s guest, I just want to share my own brief story of dealing with pelvic floor health. Um, Specifically. So in October of 2018, I got what I believe is a urinary tract infection. Um, it may not have been at my urine would never culture bacteria, maybe that’s TMI for podcasts, but.

It’s the truth. So my year-end would never culture bacteria, but I had all the symptoms of a urinary tract infection. The urinary frequency burning with urination, even, uh, some blood. Uh, passing blood in my urine. A lot of heaviness in my pelvis. And it was really, really concerning. I even went back to urgent care and the emergency room three separate times for three separate urine analysis.

And every single time they were like, well, you have the symptoms of a UTI, but your, your animal culture, bacteria. So. The main symptom? No, after I sort of resolved the frequency and the burning and the bleeding, the symptom that remained was spasming in my urethra. And it didn’t matter if I was paying or not, it would spasm. And I figured out that when I laid down, it felt better, but whenever I was upright, it felt worse.

So, what did I do naturally? I started laying down a lot more and I basically spent from November of 2018 to March of 2019 in bed. Like self-imposed bedrest. That of course was mixed with a lot of anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia. For those of you who’ve been listening to my podcast for a while, you probably are familiar with my story.

It culminated in a suicide attempt on March 7th, 2019. However, I was referred to a urologist for this mysterious spasming in my urethra. And by that point, I had been dealing with this symptom for about five months. And I was pretty convinced that I either had interstitial cystitis. Or like bladder cancer. My mind was in catastrophization worst case scenario mode.

And so whenever I got to my urologist appointment, I described everything. Every sensation, the timeline of events, all the different natural remedies and supplements that I had tried. I described everything and he was like, you don’t have interstitial cystitis. I doubt. Very seriously. You have cancer. You have pelvic floor dysfunction.

And I just couldn’t believe it. And I was like, can you examine me? Like, I really want to be sure. And he was like, sure. So I laid on the table and he essentially gave me. Kind of a mini pelvic exam. Uh, but basically he, he put his fingers in my body and he pressed on different things and he was like, this is your, your rethread.

Is this uncomfortable? No. This is your bladder I’m pushing on it. Is it uncomfortable? My answer was no. This is your rectum. He pushed on it. Is that uncomfortable? I was like, well, I mean, obviously it’s uncomfortable. It’s my rectum, but like, it’s not painful. And then he pushed on the right wall of my vagina.

And I almost jumped off the table. It was so painful and he said, that’s what I mean, you have pelvic floor dysfunction. So he referred me to pelvic floor physical therapy. And I was not scheduled to start pelvic floor physical therapy until the end of March. So I actually attempted suicide before.

Um, but at that point I also knew that I had something called pelvic congestion syndrome, which is basically varicose veins in the pelvis. And pelvic congestion syndrome can occur in both men and women. And it typically involves the left. Uh, gonadal vein or ovarian vein, which is the most common vein that gets congested.

Um, but it also typically involves the left and right. Internal iliac veins. So those are the pew genital, an arbitrator veins. So that was a whole separate thing. And I would like to do some podcast episodes about that in the future, because it’s just not talked about enough, but basically I just had all of this like stagnation and congestion and inflammation in my pelvis.

And I started going into pelvic floor physical therapy in March of 2019. And to say that it is. Life-changing has been an understatement. Like I know life-changing sounds like really, like it’s a big deal. It’s bigger than that for me. Like, Pelvic floor physical therapy. Even though it wasn’t holistic pelvic care, which is what my guests, Kate Columbia and I are talking about in today’s podcast episode.

Even though I wasn’t receiving holistic pelvic health care. Like what we talk about, it was still profoundly transformational for me. And I realized how disconnected from my pelvis. I had been, I had basically compartmentalized this part of my body from my waist. To my knees. And it was like that part of my body is for having sex and for having babies and it bleeds once a month. And other than that, I don’t really want to think about it.

Um, so I was very disconnected from my pelvis. And. I also realized through pelvic floor physical therapy that I carried a lot of trauma. And a lot of tension in my pelvic floor. So I was diagnosed with something called hypertonic pelvic floor dysfunction, which. You can Google that if you want to know more, um, it’s the most common type of pelvic floor dysfunction, as far as I know. And it’s basically a combination of a pelvic floor that is very tight, but very weak.

So tension doesn’t equal strength. So in addition to having this urethral spasming. I had had a couple of years of some stress incontinence. You know, I would leak a little bit of urine whenever I would sneeze or cough or laugh. Um, I hadn’t jumped on the trampoline with my kids in years because I couldn’t jump on the trampoline without leaking a little bit of urine.

Even if my bladder was empty. So what I learned from pelvic floor, physical therapy. And I have the most bad-ass pelvic floor, physical therapist. Um, she’s like a vagina whisperer. I trust her so much. And the relationship that I’ve cultivated with her over the last three years is. Honestly, one of the most important relationships I have, like she is an integral part of my care team.

Um, and so on, her name is Jana. So I’ll just tell you my pelvic floor, physical therapist name is Jana. And Janna has worked diligently with me to reestablish that connection. To my pelvis, to my pelvic floor. And to learn how to listen to my body signals in terms of where I’m carrying tension and stress, how to release that.

How to connect my pelvis, my pelvic floor to my breath. Um, how to relax it. Because relaxation was step one. A lot of people just they’re like, oh, pelvic floor physical therapy. I’ll just start doing key goals. Like, no, please don’t do that please. Don’t don’t just start doing giggles because if you already have a tense,

Pelvic floor and you start doing key goals. You’re just going to make the tension worse. Um, it was so important for me to have the manual, which is internal physical therapy. Done first. Because that released a lot of the tension. And I had to learn how to connect my breath back to my pelvic floor. And I had to learn when to engage my pelvic floor and how, when I was lifting coughing, sneezing, um,

You know, basically just like living my life. Because I had been so disconnected from my public floor for so long, it just didn’t come naturally to me anymore. It was like relearning, how to use. The root of my body, literally. And I’m still in pelvic floor physical therapy. And it’s not because I don’t like, I don’t think that if you go to pelvic floor physical therapy, that means you need to do it for three years. Like, I’ve definitely had breaks of weeks or months at a time where I haven’t gone at all. And every once in a while, I’ll go back because I either want to check something out or because I have a funny feeling and I want to go relieve it.

Um, and it’s just an important part of my life. And I firmly believe that every woman needs pelvic floor care. And I wish it was a routine part of postpartum care. Like I think that once you have a baby, your doctor or your midwife should set you up with a pelvic floor, physical therapist to rehab your pelvic floor. If you have sexual trauma, pelvic floor physical therapy can be extremely healing.

And if you just have a general, general disconnection from your pelvic floor, if you’re storing a lot of tension and stress in your pelvic floor, some people store tension in their neck and shoulders. Some people store it in their low backs. Some people store it in their pelvic floors. I’m one of those people that stores it in my polar.

I’ll never forget. In 2017, I was visiting my best friend, Megan in Texas, and I was telling her about something in my life and she had her head in her refrigerator. And she popped her head out of the refrigerator with the door still open. And she just said, Lindsay, Are you eight over 10. And I was like, what?

Copies so off guard and she was like, check in, are you clenching your butt right now? And I did and sure enough, she was right. And that’s some like the type a perfectionist overachiever, um, High-performer person that I identified as like classic, anal retentive personality. Right. Personality air quotes there.

Um, so that was sort of the beginning. I didn’t even realize that about a year and a half later, I would be in pelvic floor physical therapy for a tight pelvic floor. So. Thank you for letting me share my journey with you. Whether you’re a man or a woman or a non-binary person, you have a pelvic floor and it is.

At the root of your body, it is your foundation. It is necessary to have a healthy pelvic floor to have a healthy foundation for your life. Um, it connects you to your body in a way that is indescribable, in my opinion. And it’s profound. So that’s my story with pelvic floor stuff. And now I want to introduce today’s podcast guests to you.

I have with me K colada. kate is a mother a midwife a teacher and a healer

Kate helps women discover their body’s potential and heal from birth trauma or just life. She’s been a dedicated student and practitioner of manual therapies since 2001. A teacher of prenatal yoga and birth preparations since 2005. And she began catching babies as a licensed midwife in California in 2007.

Today Kate has a full-time healing practice that focuses on women’s health. She has advanced training in holistic pelvic care, pelvic floor rehabilitation, visceral manipulation, craniosacral therapy, and Arvigo techniques of Maya abdominal therapy. Along with midwifery experience and intuitive understanding to help you get to the root of your pelvic issues.

And bring deep and lasting healing. Her private practice is based in Sonoma, California, though. She loves to take workshops and healing offerings to women’s gatherings and retreat settings around the country. And if you’d like to follow Kate on Instagram, you can find her at wild woman wellness. And I will also have links to her Instagram as well as her website for how you can work with her.

In the show notes of this episode and show notes are going to be found at the bottom. If you’re listening on iTunes or Spotify or other podcast players, or you can head to Lindsay lockett.com forward slash podcast. And this is episode 63, so you can find show notes there. And yeah this episode is just all about pelvic health stuff and trauma and all the things it’s juicy it’s necessary and i hope it supports you so please enjoy Hello, Kate. Welcome to the holistic trauma healing podcast. I’m honored to have you here. Hi. Hi. I am so happy to be here with you all today. So I just read your bio, but could you give my listeners just an idea of What you do, what your passions are, why you love working with women in the pelvic floor?

Absolutely. So my journey to working with the pelvic floor was definitely a healer’s journey. I started a long time ago as a bodyworker at 17, and then became a midwife at the young age of 23. And that was my work until I. Gave birth to my son in 2011. And it just rocked my world, which any parent will say, of course, but I had a intense healing journey of the pelvic floor that I wasn’t prepared for, even though I was already a midwife and a body worker and a prenatal yoga teacher it was a really big deal for me.

And I was going to go rogue at that point actually. And just start combining all of my experience, my own healing journey with my own, with my work experience as a healer and a midwife. And then I found one of my amazing teachers, Tammy Kent, who created the modality of holistic pelvic care.

So she wrote the book wild, feminine, can’t say enough good things about her and her work. And I started studying with her and went on to do a great deal of other pelvic trainings. They allowed me to do the Herman and Wallace, which is like what the physical therapists go through if they want to add pelvic floor therapy to their toolkit.

And so I did those trainings and. I was late, but I think I was saying I was able to do that as a midwife is why I was able to go through those and then I put it all together and it’s become my life’s work. It’s definitely unexpected that this is what I’m doing with my days is essentially massaging vaginas.

But I love it and I love it so much. And the impact is tremendous. And being with women is so meaningful and ultimately it all wraps up in what I call sitting at the spirit door. So I, as a midwife, definitely was there to hold space and that birthing field as babies were coming in. And the spirit door’s wide open, literally where there was one.

Now there’s two. I do a lot of other medicine ceremony work where it definitely is quite the same where you’re right there at the spirit door and holding space and holding pelvic space. I think of it as the midwifery model of pelvic floor PT for women in holistic pelvic care. It is, oftentimes psychedelic really amazing, just transformational and incredible for healing.

And that’s what we’re talking about here on your podcast today. The potential for healing when the spirit door is wide open is tremendous. The potential for trauma is also there too. So depending on how it’s held matters so much and that’s what I teach, I help people prepare for birth to be held in that way and call in the right support.

And when working with the pelvic bowl with this space that I, will very easily argue is the most important thing place. On the planet. It’s literally, like the center of creation inside of us, that it’s held in a really good way. And and really honored, not just for what is their physical, but for the portal energy and the root foundation of our bodies and our energetic fields that the potential for healing is just so great.

That’s so juicy. Okay. So confession, I am familiar with Tammy Lynn Kent and her work. I’ve read her book wild, feminine. I actually. Gave her a book, wild, feminine to my pelvic floor, physical therapist. And I was like, please read this. And then I want to do the things in this book with you. And so we did some experimenting with that and I started this podcast in October of 2020, and I’ve emailed Tammy Lynn Kent twice to come on the podcast and I’ve never gotten a response.

That’s okay. She’s probably really busy, a big deal. Yeah. And I’m not sure. I can’t obviously speak for her. She’s does really amazing work. And her training is only four days long. She’s magical person. Her training is a download. And so I still integrate her work into every single session.

Of course. It’s the template essentially that I’m still using. And you can imagine all the other trainings that, feed into the healing work that I, or anyone else who’s offering holistic pelvic care. So I think that PTs, pelvic floor PTs are the perfect people to integrate what she has created or downloaded.

Essentially, I imagine herself, but other people too who are offering it, just bringing all of their experiences with women’s health and bodywork. And for me, craniosacral therapy is a big one too into the healing sessions that call it that. And then for the listeners, her book is actually about doing it to yourself.

And so it’s mapping your own pelvis and going on that journey. And when I hold space for someone and we’re doing it together, first of all, I’m not, I’m. Do a lot of my own healing work on myself, but I think it’s almost silly to think that we can just be our own healers. We want helpers on the journey and we come together and we collaborate in a session it’s held like a ceremony.

It’s more intense, it’s more potent. And I always thought talk about it. It’s like a guided tour of your own body that you’ve never had before. And the mapping and the channeling is co-created between the person on the table and myself, but you can take the book and already start, can you absolutely can, but I have to agree with you because it was, I’m not afraid of my own pelvis, my own vagina anymore, but.

I, I was raised as an evangelical Christian where like that part of my body was off limits, and very disconnected from that part of my body. And I’m actually so grateful that I was diagnosed with pelvic floor dysfunction, hypertonic, pelvic floor dysfunction in the winter of 2019. And I started pelvic floor physical therapy and.

I’m so grateful for that, because that I had that person I’m grateful that I didn’t just read Tammy’s book and then start trying to do it on my own. I’m really grateful that I had a pelvic floor, physical therapist who, by the way, shout out to all the pelvic floor, physical therapists, like you are magical beings.

But I’m so grateful that I had her to help me reconnect to that part of my body in a way that was so gentle and so honoring and you’re right. It was like ceremony. It was like ritual. Like she would turn the lights off and it would just be like she and me and and my vagina. And like I learned like how to feel into that part of my body that I had been so disconnected from for so long.

And I’m no longer afraid of my pelvis. I’m not afraid to look at my vagina, the mirror. I’m not afraid of. Touching myself, like I’m no longer afraid. So those of you who do that work are just magical beings and you deserve so much credit and love. So thanks. And I would also say it’s that foundational part of ourselves, not just the physical, but the energetic.

And when you heal your root, when you heal the foundation it changes you. And the proof is in the pudding. It’s like down the road a lot will happen in a session as we’re unwinding. And really, I think of it as like cleaning house. Like it’s like a storehouse for a lot of women. And we clear it out.

We unpack it and I set up some energetics at the beginning of the session to support that like a grounding cord to let it go. And have that intent is the great secret of just really clearing the space whatever’s living embedded in the tissue, as they say, the issues are in our tissues.

And we think we store it up in our brains, but it really it’s all magnified, especially in the pelvic bowl. And we started unpacking it and clearing it out. And. With time, or just, even within that session, it starts to be like, I think of it sometimes, like you’re in the basement and it’s wow, there’s a lot down here.

And it’s literally like the root it’s gosh, there’s so much. And you start clearing it out and moving things around and getting all the, just reaching into the corners and checking and seeing what’s there. And slowly but surely as you’re doing that clean out, you’re like, wow, the space feels really good.

And then you’re reclaim it and really live in that space again. And then, so that’s happening in the session. And if people walk out feeling really good and feeling like that was a profound experience, but it’s an initiation of healing more than it is what we do in that session. It’s once we free the fascia, that’s.

And some, at some cases, so bound up, it’s like strangling and re restricting the flow of blood and oxygen and energy and lymphatic drainage so that the tissue is finally just fed again. And when that’s happening, it’s not just that the symptom goes away. You start making different choices in your life.

You it’s like it’s so pro I’m sounding like I’m just so excited about it. It’s because I love. Watching it and I’m just the helper, we just do our little session together and it’s the woman’s wisdom. It’s her body’s wisdom. When it’s has, when it’s fully fed and she has this really strong, healthy root that her life transforms.

And, it sounds like your story and everyone’s healing journey of course is different and they need to call in different modalities and are treating different symptoms. But when you have. Solid foundation. You can heal your own life. You move on to create a podcast, to help other people heal their trauma and their lives.

And it’s just we’re all in this together. And and I think this is the key. I think it’s the coolest thing. Yeah. You’re, other people can not see you, but I can see you. And you’re like, literally glowing as we talk about this. So it’s really obvious how passionate and excited about it.

You are. And I probably should’ve mentioned this at the beginning, but like pelvic health care is for all bodies, no matter what your gender is like, it’s for everyone. So if you’re a man or identify as male and you’re listening to this, then this is for you just as much as it is for anyone else.

And if you have a partner with a vagina, then maybe you can listen to this episode and send it to them if you think it’s helpful. So yeah, so I want to talk about Trauma and the pelvic floor first, like this is the holistic trauma healing podcast. And it was incredible for me to work with the pelvic floor physical therapist, and really just explore all of the layers of my pelvic floor, where.

I remember whenever she would be doing manual therapy inside my vagina. And she would get to a place where it felt like there was tension or pain. And I just remember being like, Ooh, something lives there, like something lives there. And so can you talk about how we store trauma in our pelvic floor and the relationship of the autonomic nervous system with the pelvic floor and that like sympathetic dominant, nervous system state being in charge of creating a pelvic floor that’s tight, but not necessarily strong.

Can you just unpack all of that? Sure. Fear equals tension and that creates pain. That’s like a Grantley decree. That’s from like the twenties it’s and it’s in most birth classes at this point. And when we have experienced. Intense and fearful like a trauma experience. And it can be a collective trauma.

It can have, it can be a single incident or a state of living. It creates trigger points all throughout the pelvic bowl, for sure. And tension and strength are not the same. A lot of people have symptoms that show up as leaking or. Or heaviness, there’s a prolapse kind of situation coming along and they think that they’re weak, but it’s actually tension so much tension in the muscle or just the fascia or the trigger points.

They, and it’s actually I was just talking about before restricting the flow, but it’s also displacing organs or pulling things down. So that heaviness that you’re feeling, if you have been diagnosed with a prolapse or more likely, it’s not a prolapse it’s, but it’s under that umbrella and their seals assist a seal or a rectocele, that’s a softening or a client falling in of the wall that makes the rectum or the bladder just crowd into the vaginal canal.

And it’s tension in the pelvic bowl more often than not weakness, that’s pulling it out of alignment. So we walk around like that and it’s. Usually, it’s getting worse if you’re holding that all the time it’s going to start impacting not just the muscle or the connective tissue, but then the organs and the symptoms start and that kind of thing.

What you, I guess the question about the trauma response and how that impacts the bowl? Actually, I remember Tammy talking about this because of course she’s been doing this work much longer and would reflect on it from nine 11 and seeing all the women with trigger points. And now I’ve been doing this work through this global pandemic and can concur that we hold it and we are like her, we are like feeling it all in our bodies.

And so it’s living in the tissue for sure. And so we can let it go. Sometimes it’s a journey, sometimes it’s an instantaneous kind of release and that’s, you know what I’m after. Yeah, hell yeah. Cleared out. I actually did experience while I was doing pelvic floor physical therapy. I experienced assist a seal because I was doing some of my exercises incorrectly, like the way I was breathing through it.

And I just remember feeling so freaked out and it was minor enough that we were able to reverse it and I don’t have that issue anymore. So I’m wondering. For men they obviously don’t have a vagina for like their bladder to fall through or for things to get squished in there.

But how does the tension in the pelvic floor, in a man’s body, as far as like his prostate and his bladder and all of that what is that and I know you have more experience with women’s bodies than men, but I laugh and people ask me all the time is, does this exist for men? And I’m like, yes, a lot of pelvic floor PTs also work on men.

And I love men don’t get me wrong and I have no idea

I don’t even know at all. And I it’s been included in some of my classes and stuff. And obviously I know my way around the male anatomy, but I I just don’t, I know it’s the same, but like I’m connected to the feminine form and that like the energetics and we all hold the masculine and feminine energetics in us.

Of course. And I think most people are familiar with this and a lot of modalities and teachings, echo that the left side is the feminine and the right side is the masculine and that some of the mapping that’s really loud in the pelvic bowl. And it’s not an effort to, I know this, isn’t your question.

I’m just going on it, but it’s not an effort to balance that we’re all going to oftentimes be maybe more in our feminine or more in our masculine at any given moment or we’re more in one or the other. Just dominantly in our life, but to harmonize that and some of our history and trauma with our own parents, maybe, and the masculine and feminine experiences that we’ve had as children can sometimes show up as one side of the bull.

And the other side of the ball feels like completely different rooms. The muscular tension mapping that I’m like in that just the mapping that I’m doing is completely different. The emotion, the energetics just feel so polarized. And so one of the teachings that comes from Tammy and I’ve definitely had downloads from spirit that have just been like, this is so potent, I’d love to share with you is to imagine wrapping the left side of your bowl.

So imagine starting at your pubic bone and wrap, like the energy sweeping like snaking around to wrap the left side and crosses right at your sacrum and then comes around and. Did I say the left or right. So that’s a matter of the other side. And so it’s creating an infinity symbol sweeping through your bowl, but it’s not an infinity symbol, like straight ahead.

It’s like horizontal or parallel with the earth. So yeah, it’s on the plane wrapping and harmonizing, maybe not balancing, but harmonizing the masculine, feminine, the two sides of the bowl. And with that harmony, it’s like the feminine. This is mostly my experience. And I’m I know w people use lots of different language to describe these things, but the feminine is like the vision or the prayer or the spark of inspiration.

It’s and then the masculine is the manifestation, the follow-through the force and where it’s crossing. And that infinity in the center is the center of creation inside of you, like literally the spirit door. And then, just really like an incredible potent access point for someone who has that anatomy to access any time and really birth your life from sometimes spirits bringing babies through us.

But that’s only part of the time it’s I must create, and I’m feeling this right now. I’m probably finished having babies, but sometimes I just like wonder, cause I just want to create so badly. And then, I channel that energy in different directions. I like to say, make prayers, not plans, harnessing that energy.

Yeah. That’s very wise. I definitely experienced more tension and more pain on the right side of my pelvic bowl. And I’m actually still dealing with it’s no longer a pelvic floor issue, I don’t think, but I’m still dealing with some right side so as muscle things that have been tricky to figure out.

But I remember journaling one day and I was just asking Dear. So as muscle, oh, what do you need from me? And just the response that I got back was because my right side of my body is that like masculine side, like you were saying, and the response that I got back was like, you’ve been in your masculine for too long and I’m tired, like tired of supporting you all the time.

And that was like the catalyst and to me, learning more about masculine and feminine energy and balance. And like before I ever dealt with what I knew were pelvic floor issues. I had a best friend of mine once just asked me, Lindsay, are you anal retentive? And I was like, what do you mean Megan?

And she was like, check in with yourself right now. Are you clenching your butt? Totally. And I did. And I was, I like pause and I checked in with myself and I was like, holy shit, Yes. And that was like, that was in 2017. And that was the beginning of the reestablishment of a connection to my pelvic floor.

And that tension being there. And like I said, I had hypertonic pelvic floor, which my understanding is that’s like the most common sort of pelvic floor dysfunction and where you’re just like very tense, very tight, but not necessarily strong. And that was my first experience with that. And then going to pelvic floor physical therapy and all the issues being on the right side, I’m feeling that imbalance and like almost feeling like I wasn’t able to access energetically.

My right ovary, like even now I’m like tuning in with my body now, even now, like I have more access to the energy on the left side or the, yeah. The left side of my pelvic bowl than I have on the right. So it’s so interesting. You have to come home to those spaces sometimes. And I, it’s really funny that you say that.

So we live in a masculine world, this is how it’s run. And as women we, it feels really good to do stuff, make stuff happen. And we’re both like you run your podcast and I’m like running my business, it’s I’m practically leaning in with my right side half the time.

Making my point. And so I invite you to like, just try to step forward with your left foot first one time and just see how it feels until just consciously try to come into your body in that way. And then it’s hilarious. I try to be like funny about it when I track it, which is at least a few times a week or more.

Pretty common, this like tight ass patterning in the bowl. It’s funny. Cause they’re like crack up because it’s like right on. And of course I say it like in the old, most loving way as I’m literally like just hanging out in that tissue, grand central station, at the paradigm where all the like more superficial muscles cross.

And then it’s just all tracking right to the rectal sphincter. And, it’s like just this holding, like I have to hold it all up for everybody and, just keep it all together. And no, I got it. I’ll take that for you too. And everybody can just drink from my cup and it’s just this pattern and it shows up in that exact physical pattern.

Is it the energetics is the emotion. It’s the physical, like which one comes first, who knows, but we are it’s a mirroring of our whole life, which also leads me to something like, the reason why we ended up meeting was because I was posting on Instagram about the connection between the throat or like the like Gladys and the jaw and the throat and the lips and the tongue and the pelvic space.

And then I want you to talk about. I had a client this week that we were working in, it sounded like a similar pattern to what you had in your body. And she had this woman was 71 and she has had pretty severe scoliosis for most of her life. It has a collapsed right. Lung. And so in her diaphragm, like her, that when everyone thinks of the main diaphragm, the diaphragm it was, it’s like really restricted right there.

And it could barely, I felt like just like in her pelvic bowl, the right side, was just like walled off barricaded off. There was no way I was going to reach like the Bacco or that corner of her bowl in this first session at least. And it’s just had been that pattern for so long that we have in this case, Kind of truckloads of homework to do.

It’s some people have just a little, or we get the release on the first session, but in this case, she’s older and her body’s been carrying this pattern for a really long time. And then it tracks up, to the, so there’s, I think of it as three diaphragms. Some people will make many more out of it and I’m not like in any, I’m not the expert on this at all.

I’m a body worker, pelvic healer. And so it, to me it’s, and my, one of my greatest gifts as a healer is actually clear sentience. So I can track tension in my own body that informs me about the person that I’m working on, but it is a mirror between the face and as a midwife. This is one oh one in birth class to the face and the jaw and the throat and lips.

And like just it’s all like this tension here translates immediately to tension throughout the pelvic bowl. Sometimes it’s easier to unlock. The tension in our face. And I have tricks of unwinding and softening the jaw, or just bringing awareness there. And then you unlock it on purpose, or you can look in the mirror and let your whole face fall.

It’s sometimes easier to consciously release that than to release the muscles in the pelvic floor. You’re like, am I holding? And there are some ways of doing that. Like I used to, this is a birth preparation. Thing, because we’re preparing for this opening in the spirit door and this cert deep surrender and wanting to make it a very powerful but gentle experience for people and not, hopefully, be super traumatic for sure, but just have it be a really positive and empowering experience.

And part of that is learning to surrender and have faith and trust the journey and stay soft. So I have them unwind their face and their jaw and get so soft. It looks like, they’re sleeping and their teeth and their lips part. And I used to have the partner feel her, but see if she’s clenching, see if she’s holding out.

And then now I know that like the glutes, you don’t want to be clenching the glutes, but that is not the pelvic floor. It’s deeper than that. And so it’s especially the lifter muscles that in a pregnant body are holding up the baby this whole time. But in our own bodies, hold up all of our organs and do a lot all the time.

And the superficial muscles are really important too. And we don’t want tension in those, but those are like a fingertip deep, the deeper muscles, the lifters that do most of the work. We often are holding out all the time, just holding them up in this deeper way. So what you have to do is you actually have to bear down a little bit and push out a little bit and see if you were holding those muscles or do a proper Kegal where you like contract, or you close the openings, or I think of closing the doors of the elevator.

So if my finger was the, give it doing the biofeedback, it’s squeezing around the finger and then lifting, using the lift muscles to draw the pelvic floor up into the body and doing that consciously, really getting the whole Kegal and do that, do it on your exhale, the efforts on the exhale, and then let go all the way and see if you maybe were holding that elevator like more at the first or second floor all the time and start to consciously unwind that.

I love that. I love it so much. And what came up was back into the masculine side of things is I did not realize until my friend pointed out that I was being anal retentive, that was my first realization of the rigidity that I held in my whole body. Just not being able to let go, not being able to let loose and have fun, like not being able to embody my sensuality and my sexuality, because there was such a protective masculine shield of rigidity and I was carrying it all down there.

And it’s amazing how, whenever you were talking about like that those muscles that hold everything and how women’s. Particularly can be prone to, oh, I’ll carry that for you. Oh, I’ll add one more thing to my plate to help make you happy. Oh, I’ll violate my own boundaries for you. Sure. I’ll just keep pouring and I’ll keep pouring and I’ll keep giving.

And it’s amazing how energetically, the more relaxed and less rigid my pelvic floor became. And the more I was able to tune in with that, it was like at the same time, I started to shift in my life where I was like the things that I’ve been doing and giving all the time and being the martyr and all of that.

Like it’s no longer working for me. And it was like a direct correlation between the work I was doing in my pelvic floor and then the like energetic and spiritual and trauma work of reclaiming those parts of myself that I gave away for free because that’s what was expected of me as a woman. And.

And it’s an adjustment and I love helping people open all the way, but even after a regular massage, I’ll go into the grocery store and be like, ah, like the people, you feel well, really open and vulnerable and exposed. And our strength is in our softness. And as we inhabit that bigger feminine range, and I don’t have another way of talking about that, but using that word, the feminine, because I think of it as like when we’re right before bleeding time and we’re like feeling everything or like when we open all the way to give birth and we like, go a little crazy and our anticipation of that in the later days you’re it’s just, you’re so cosmic and wide open.

And so that softness and that openness is that nature. So when we do a session and somebody’s body, literally their tissue is transformed so much and it just they’re so open. It’s an incredibly beautiful thing, but then you go into the world. The parking lot at the, it just, it’s so intense.

So I always encourage people to really protect that. Especially if you’re doing this work on your own at home and, with your partner, hopefully that relationship feels like you can be really safe and in your softness and with your, like people that you really trust and you feel safe with.

But otherwise we want to we need to come up with the energetic support to, to be able to be really soft and open, but then know how to energetically, pull your skirt in and be protected in the times that, like you are all the way open or in the edges of your feminine range which is such a beautiful thing.

And so you’re learning how to do that. Or you’re. The choices you make are changing as that route heals. Yeah, it’s all so many layers and it’s so energetic and emotional and it works the, at plays, the range of the masculine and the feminine and their polarity and how they weave together.

And we just learn ourselves and discover parts of ourselves or reclaim parts of ourselves that we were conditioned or inherited. Like it’s not even ours or it’s just, the way we. Maybe it’s simply just like the way you always stood, created that pattern, but what came first? It’s just, you know what I’m saying?

It’s what is it like, how did we get here? And a lot of it might even be pre-verbal and that’s another thing is there’s talk therapy. And I love it, for people that really benefit from that, there’s all kinds of therapy, but in this root healing, I take a history. My, my form has just two sides because after a few decades, we all at least two sides to fill out on the paper when it comes to pelvic history.

And I want people to feel safe and like they can share with me, but I, I’ve learned early on sometimes people coming and really needing to just get it off, get it out of them in a verbal way. It gives me secondary trauma. Like women have been through a lot. And I take a history, but have my own boundaries around how much I’m, hearing about specific events, especially and then it’s in their body.

And I go after my skill is as a body worker to treat the physical form while honoring the energetics. And of course the story and trying to just yeah do the physical clearing out. And that’s what happened with my birth trauma. Is that it was so out, I just, oh, like that experience and I could hardly talk about it and was highly triggered by other people talking about it.

And I basically tried really hard to not go to births after that. Especially initially, and just was really traumatized. My body was traumatized. The wound is deep again, when the spirit door is wide open, it gets in real deep. And I went to Tammy’s training. And so I was treated by other people in the class, but got to get really get her full download.

And then I went back to a system. Maybe a year or two later or something. And I’m like, oh my God, I’m like not triggered at all. Like it’s not even heavy. It’s not even anything it’s it’s just it healed it. And so with the physical symptoms getting better and healing up the trauma was better and it wasn’t heavy anymore.

Miraculous really? That resonates big time. Yeah. I like have the full body tingles of like how true that is for me. And I also want to talk about, I’m looking at this email that w we had this exchange, and I really want to talk about using the pelvic floor as a thermostat for awareness, for how we’re holding stress and trauma and tension and my own personal I guess thing that I would share from this is that.

By reconnecting to my pelvic floor through pelvic floor physical therapy and realizing how neglected that part of my body had been for so long and rekindling a relationship with it and being like it is just as important for me to take care of this and be aware of this as it is for me to brush my teeth every day.

Like it’s a whole thing. And so now when I’m in stressful situations, I actually have trained myself to tune into my pelvic floor. And if I’m in the middle of having an argument with my partner or baking a stressful business decision or whatever it is, like I’ve trained myself to check in with my pelvic floor.

And if I feel, if I’m clenching and becoming anal retentive, like I intentionally and consciously whew, let it relax. And it’s such an amazing. Grounding tool in my own body. And it keeps me like anchored in myself in that situation. Versus if I was all tense and closed up and tight, then I’m more likely to be almost more out of control, more like a storm versus just like being able to be like grounded and soft in my body, even in the middle of a stressful time.

So can you talk about using the pelvic floor as like a thermostat for figuring out like how stressful is this? Like, how am I checking in with myself? Am I might even wording the question correctly. I love it. I feel like you’re answering it just through your own experience. That’s a really good example of that.

And let’s, I let’s be honest, like when I’m in a argument with my partner I’m probably not thinking about my pelvic floor. Oh, I totally do. That’s so good. I’m like, I love that, that you have so much awareness and. It’s sometimes it comes down to just that pause, to check in with yourself and do your own little inventory to make sure you’re grounded and coming, with your true self and not just a reactive, time kind of thing.

So that’s really good medicine, right there is just to slow down. And yeah, I think also it’s like the self-care practices. It’s not, it’s the yoga, it’s the, we do the practice, we do the PT or the. The keigo practice that was recommended to us or the yoga practice or the Pilates core activation, not so we can do do it all the time.

It’s we’re supposed to be like in that practice all the time, you do it as a practice so that when you’re standing in line at the grocery store, you’re not clenching your butt. And that your core is active when you lean into the dryer, to get the stuff out. You’re just like, you just, it just works for you in those moments, because you’ve done that self-care and taken care and done the practice of it, that you’ve gone through the motion of the self care or the, just the, the practice.

And so what that would mean for me is regularly steaming, which is my favorite spot treatment of all time. And doing Yoni steams or pelvic steams, or however you want to call it. I love that I do my own self care bodywork, but not as like on the schedule necessarily. I just it’s like the nights that I don’t have my son, not that he can’t be here or something like that, but that it’s a, just a little bit more spacious and relaxing, be like watching a show or something and just be doing like.

Like a little bit of mapping. It’s almost better sometimes to do some of that for me when I’m not giving it all of my attention. Cause I do better like fascial release. And I think sometimes women are extra hard on themselves too. So you give them like a pelvic S curved wand or something and they just go to town.

It’s almost better just to do it when you’re not giving it all your attention and you’re not being hard on your body and just letting the tissue unwind and I’ll do some of my own release work. It’s probably, if we zoomed out a little bit cyclical, like cyclical with my cycle and how I’m feeling and what’s needed just like my breast massage gets a lot more right before I start bleeding, I just start working my breast tissue all the time because.

It feels like it’s needing it. And then holistic pelvic care. I know like it’s my modality, so of course I’m all about it, but I truly believe it’s the future of women’s health and people ask what, like how often they should come in. And I’m like, I feel like it should be like once a year for a tune-up or something, just to clear out the basement, clean house, take care of your body reset.

And and then also when big traumatic life events happen, that’s an excellent time to seek that care. Or of course, if there’s a symptom that’s coming about or a symptom that was and was, you had gotten, gotten it in check and then it’s coming back or starting to like, you’re starting to feel it coming on.

That would, of course be a great time too. Some things you can play on six weeks postpartum. Yes. Everyone needs it. Some people need it prenatally too. I would say. And a need as in it’s going to be highly beneficial. As far as the birth experience goes and then other people, need it because their own other body kind of stuff like the scoliosis or other things like that.

So you’re using some terms that I know what you mean by them, but some people may not know. So could you. Just briefly explain what you mean whenever you say, like mapping, mapping your own pelvic floor. Sure. It’s, I guess that’s maybe from wild feminine, or I would be mapping, attention in any part of the body, as a body worker, but yeah.

Massaging, but letting your intuition, but also the tension patterns lead you to the spots that need the care. That I like treat what you find kind of thing is how I most, out of the 45 minutes, I’m usually doing the internal work. I don’t time it, but it ends up being that long.

I’m mapping the tension and treating what I find for. 35 minutes at that time, like the clearing and then so yeah, mapping the tension, mapping the sensation and the emotion that’s sitting in that sensation. And, it can be really different for everyone. And I don’t think it needs to be, I don’t think it should be taught as do it this way.

Like this is not a protocol, like it can be, and I’m sure it’s been made into that a lot. Or it will be in the future, but like just listen to your own body. But one that isn’t that masculine trying to come back in and create a routine or a rigidity out of it. Yeah. This reminds me of as, one of the best ways to augment labor is doing nipple stimulation and I’ve lived at like the hospital has helping people or supporting them there where they like give it like a protocol, like how to literally like.

Tweak your doubles, do it this way. And I’m like, whatever man, like it’s just, just do it. It’s not like everybody knows how to do that. Nobody needs a how to manual nobody. Yeah. Like it’s it’s gets really silly sometimes. But some people really respond to that and it’s probably people who are more masculine or controlling or anal retentive, we could just keep going.

It’s it’s hilarious. Like the way we do anything is the way we do everything. And it echoes throughout our bodies and it echoes in the energetics and then in the physical and it’s, and it, from our job to our pelvic floor it’s just amazing. It’s all just a little too. Perfect.

Yeah. Can we. If you don’t have anything else to say about that, do you have anything else to say about that? No, I’m good. I honestly I wanna move into talking about ministration for a bit, if that sounds okay. And I want to talk about menstruating and a patriarchal world. And this is anything from like the way that blood and periods are like gross or, like we don’t talk about it in public.

Those kinds of things like shaming all the way over to homeless people and people in third world countries who menstruate not having access to like feminine hygiene products. So like the patriarchy is woven all throughout women’s menstruation and our cycles and all of that. So can we talk about menstruating in a way that moves us away from that controlling, rigid?

Patriarchal construct and rituals and products that make sense for women’s bodies rituals that make sense that cause the least amount of harm. Can we dive into that? Yeah, let’s talk about it. So it seems for me, I feel like with ministration products or with like birth control, like there’s not always like a great, there’s not like the option, the great option. Like I wish there was. But there’s not really, I think that we all should learn to be. Talk about it just a little bit more talk to the young people more about it. My son, like it was really cute recently. I was saying, I don’t remember what I was talking about, but I’m like, I’m supposed to start like my period or I was to start bleeding or whatever I said tomorrow.

And he’s you are like, and it wasn’t, it was hilarious to me because it was almost like, he felt like he was out of the, no, it wasn’t like a shock that I would be bleeding. It was like, how did you not tell me this before? Like I was it was hilarious to me. He’s you wait, you are like it was just cracked me up.

But just normalizing it, let’s do that first and foremost, I think that there’s, there’s a spectrum of how. Comfortable just anyone is with blood or where they’re wanting to go with it. There’s people on Instagram who have it as a face mask or something, or, if you’re using a menstrual cup, do poured in your plant, they will love that.

Or into your garden or whatever but everybody doesn’t need to squat and bleed on the earth. Like it’s not, I don’t think, I think that is a problem to just just, this like kind of almost shaming someone, if they’re not like so comfortable with it and going fully and like fully embracing it and shaming someone for using a tampon versus squatting and bleeding on the earth.

Exactly. So I think, it’s a careful conversation and I just think we’re solid, like really like in an interesting time where we have too much information and too much content coming in and just give everybody a break, and but we do need to. I think it’s should just not be like an embarrassing thing.

And I, it took me, and even though I was like a midwife probably into my like late twenties to not feel like embarrassed buying tampons, like what in the world. And then I still use tampons occasionally, and I would really recommend to people like first and foremost to only use organic cotton tampons, nothing with chemicals.

You’re just gonna put it right into, it’s going to be absorbed so quickly. Things are absorbed so quickly through the vaginal tissue. It’s just very porous and yeah. It will absorb the chemicals will go into your body. And so definitely don’t do that, but also just reg even just a organic tampon will in a lot of bodies cause inflammation just by itself, if you have any level of prolapse or pretty much, if you’ve had a baby or two sometimes someone, one baby you’re getting away with it, but our bodies get softer and it’s a beautiful thing.

And so even if you haven’t been diagnosed with assist a seal or a rectocele, if you’ve had a few babies or if, you know you have a cystocele or rectocele, or you suspect it, or you push for a really long time or some of the other markers that would just, for me, Just make me know that your body is softer now.

And that’s also to me, a beautiful thing. And now you’re more in your feminine range or you have more range and if you’re having symptoms then seek support so that you can control the symptoms, but like it’s okay. That we’re softer. But if you if that’s your, if that’s your body that I’m talking about a cup that is, that has suction that around the cervix is probably not a good idea.

It, especially, every month you’re bleeding and wearing it for five days or something we’ll maybe at some point exacerbate your issues and just not be serving you find another way. Really bleeding is awesome. I when I say that, probably wearing things or an underwear that’s like that.

It doesn’t always work either. Cause then you’re, they’re absorbent, but only to a point and okay. For sure. I started using a menstrual cup in 2010 before it was cool to use a menstrual cup. Like before it was all over social media and you got ads in your feed and whatever, for cops, like I was using a menstrual cup, then it was life-changing for like my period got shorter.

It got lighter, like my body, because I was using like the Kotex, like super plus heavy duty, crazy tampons before I had no idea that they were full of chemicals. I had no idea that they were made from genetically modified cotton. I had no idea that they had fucking fiberglass in them. I didn’t know any of that.

And I switched to a cup and it was amazing. And I used a cup for. Nine years solid. Like I never went back and used a pad or tampon ever again. And then I had this pelvic floor issue. And when I put the cup in, I experienced more like spasming in my pelvic floor and it got really painful. So I was like, all right, this isn’t working for me.

So that’s when I found like washable cloth pads. And I started using those and I was healing my pelvic floor. I was at home a lot. So I wasn’t really worried about having this, chunky pad showing through my leggings or whatever, cause it didn’t matter. But then I discovered Thinx period underwear, and I switched over to those and I learned about free bleeding and I was like, oh my God, this is, and I even tried to use my cup.

Once during my last cycle, I don’t really reach for it anymore, but I, every once in a while, I’m just like, I’m gonna just try this again and see, and it’s not as uncomfortable. It doesn’t cause my pelvic, Florida spasm, like it’s mostly okay. But then pulling it out has become uncomfortable. So I’m just like, all right.

The only thing I will say, I don’t like about. Period underwear or free bleeding is the first two days of my period that are heavier. The blood comes out at night and like it trickles in between my butt cheeks and it tickles and it wakes up and then I have to play. That is the one. And only thing I don’t like about free bleeding, but I love free bleeding, other ones.

I think it’s like the way and I feel it too. I feel diaper with even just the underwear sometimes and stuff, and there is one more option and I want to make sure people know about it is the disk, which is like a cup, but it doesn’t have suction. And when you sit down to pee, it empties itself sounds so good, but I have a cyst, a seal that’s totally under control and it’s, my body will always be softer and I’m, I’ve already said all of that.

And, but for some reason, like it’s supposed to tuck like right up over your pubic bone and that’s where it sits. And I could put it there, but it just doesn’t stay. So it works occasionally. It’s not dependable. I wouldn’t like really depend on it, but but that’s another option for some people and don’t, I think anybody should try it just because my experience and I will keep working on it.

It might be a learning curve kind of thing, but it does seem like another new cool option for us. Interesting. I haven’t tried it. I have not tried it. I do love the period underwear a lot. And me too, I also think that like free bleeding has, I don’t know if you’ve experienced this or not, but maybe it’s as I’m getting older, I’ll be 40 in a year and a half who knows.

But it’s almost like the more accepting I’ve become of my period. Like I used to just be like, oh, I’m on my period. It was like such a pain in the ass and it was such an inconvenience. And I really loathed it. And the more in touch I’ve become with my pelvis and my pelvic floor and the more I’ve appreciated the portal.

That is my vagina. The less I’ve hated my period and seen it as an inconvenience, but having said, seen it as this like when my period comes every month on the full moon this is a reminder to me how healthy my body is. It takes a lot of health, energy to be able to demonstrate regularly, like one of the markers of people who have a amenorrhea, like that’s a symptom that something is wrong in your body.

I’m so thankful for my period now. And it’s like amazing. The more I’ve become in touch with my body, the more pelvic floor, attention I’ve and care I’ve given myself the more I stopped trying to control and contain my blood, but I just let it be. It’s My body is like sighing with relief and it doesn’t have to hurt, I very rarely experienced cramps now, like PMs way, way down.

It’s so different now because my whole perspective about it is different. Yeah. I love feeling it. I don’t like cramps super badly or anything, but that, like that warmth, that I really love and, I think. For most of the people, most of the listeners, at least, like who are conscious and on this call and like listening in would probably just of course be this way.

But and I think any woman actually like in the restroom do you happen to have a tampon or something? Would that be so happy to jump to the aid of another. Person who’s bleeding. But this to me is like the conversation, like the way that it can be healed and brought, reclaimed, is to just bring it back to the sisterhood.

We should love it. We should celebrate each other and then take care of each other when we know that they’re you’re in your bleeding time or, like really turned to the person. If we could really get to this far evolved, the person who is right before their bleeding time is like way more in tune, way more connected and contemplated and just, it’s a beautiful thing.

And so I think that we’re getting there and then to educate the boys too, or the men, and it should be, a time where we’re taken care of and have some of the duties off. I’m really honored. Maybe we get all the way back to the red tent. How about that? Yeah. And it’s beautiful when we can be just proud of our bodies.

Like you’re like my body bleeds, every month, and that’s and the full moon is great and it’s fine. But traditionally, without all the lighting, like light pollution, we would be bleeding on the new moon actually complete on the new moon. I did. It’s, it slowly evolves every, okay.

So I actually have an interesting perspective about that. Another friend of mine, they do, they live off the grid. Like they don’t have electricity in their house. They don’t even have solar panels. Oh, they have an outhouse. Like they live in a way, the fuck out in the woods. So there’s no light pollution.

There’s none of that. And we were having a conversation about this a couple of years ago, and she also used to bleed with a new moon every single month. And then slowly her cycle changed and shifted. And she said that. What she realized was that was her body’s way of being like, I don’t want a baby right now because her husband’s sexual energy was stronger around the full moon, which was when she would have been obviating before.

But whenever her cycle switched and she was bleeding on the full moon, when her husband’s sexual energy was strongest, then they weren’t intimate. And then they weren’t making a baby because when she was operating on the new moon, his sexual energy was less. And she’s just I think this is just a natural way that my body is I love that I’m done.

I’m not having a baby right now because our there’s that polarity in our sexual energy because of the moon. And I’ve noticed that with myself, like the old, I used to bleed on the new moon, like clockwork, and then as I’ve gotten older and I’m entering that perimenopausal. Age, my cycle has shifted over to bleeding on the full moon.

And it’s I know like deep within myself, like I’m done having babies. Like I don’t even, I don’t even get the, the ache in my uterus when I hold a newborn anymore, like I’m totally past that. So that’s one perspective on bleeding with the full moon. I love that. I think that’s like super wise of her.

I love that reflection of that change or that shift. That’s so perfect. And I also just, again, back to the sisterhood, like this, like the, we are, that’s when we would circle, and set our intention and do moon ceremonies with the new moon. And maybe or right after, with that new birthing energy. And then when it’s the full moon, we’re like, partying with the boys for the big light of the moon. Like it’s. It’s the way, and it doesn’t have to always be the way like we, we are evolving and we are really resilient creatures. And then, and still we, if we’re reclaiming, if we’re starting to say no to the patriarchal, just overtones on everything and our medical care and like we’re really reclaiming that, then it would be, it would make perfect sense that we would be coming back to some of these traditions of honoring these cycles of the moon, of our bleeding time of the cycle, and the sisterhood.

Yeah. Yeah. I want to share when my daughter started her period we of course had a completely different conversation than the one I had growing up, where it was just like your period was something to dread and it was something you kept hidden and God forbid, you leaked in your pants, walking down the hallway in junior high, we had a completely different thing with my daughter.

I was like, I don’t want this to be something that you dread and that you feel ashamed of. I want it to be something that we celebrate. So she actually she started her period on. The new moon of a lunar eclipse. I was like, whoa, girl, you are powerful. And I called my best friend and another woman in our community.

And we didn’t have a red tent, but at the time we had a sauna and it was in a red building. And so we got together with my daughter and the three of us women went out and she joined us and we had a woman’s sauna. And we just talked about like one of my friends had been to Ireland and they have pictures of Volvos and stonework and Ireland.

And so she was sharing about that with my daughter. And we were talking about different stories of like menstruating and the moon and pregnancy and all of that. And my daughter was there to share that with us. And then one of my friends gave my daughter a homemade necklace and another one of my friends gave my daughter a book that was about strong women.

And we just had this beautiful, it was like red tent, but it was like the red sauna, and. And like now my daughter free leads. Like I’ve tried to get her to try an organic tampon because I’m just like, honey, there’s gonna come a point when you may really not have your period underwear with you and you may just have to have a tampon in your purse.

So it would be really important for you to learn how to use it. It’s important for you to learn how to touch your body and be comfortable with that. And she, she refuses. Like she absolutely refuses because she just wants to replete. That does not look good to me at all. No. Yeah. She’s no, I’m not doing it.

I don’t want to stick anything up there. So anyway that’s my little thank you. Thank you. And I have some books that I can recommend in the show notes. Let’s see. I think I have one of them up here. It’s hard for me to see. I’ll link for I’ll link them. There’s oh, it’s like moon mother moon daughter is one of the books that I ride with her and I’ll link the ones in the show notes.

But anyway back to our conversation, is there anything else that you would just really want to make sure listeners get from this conversation or anything that you feel still needs to be said before we get off? I feel like that was a really juicy, awesome conversation. And I could always, I feel like there’s always more to share, but I also think that, we’re all on our own healing journey and that just to know that you’re, you don’t have to be alone and that support is out there.

And sometimes we just have to seek it out, reach for it. There’s a list on Tammy’s website of practitioners all over the world who have gone through her training and then have some experience behind them and then pass through the threshold for her to put them on the website. So that’s one way another tradition is Arvigo it’s excuse me, Rosita Arvigo who studied?

Excuse me under a traditional healer, a shaman or healer in Belize and sharing a mine, abdominal massage technique, but it’s also just amazing. Long-terms women’s health womb care and body care, another tradition to add in there. Yeah and I’m available to, my website is just my name, Kate Colletti C O L E T i.com.

And I’m going to be putting my birth class, which I’ve been developing now for, well over a decade. It’s a spiritual lens. And and just really down to just the gems, I’ve pulled slowly over the years, the stuff that’s in every, book by your bed and just like the. The boring stuff that most people already actually know.

And now it’s just really just an amazing birth preparation experience. And it’s, it went online shortly through the pandemic time and I’m about to launch it in a more official, like just broader reach kind of way in the new year. So I’m really excited about that. And all of those links will also be through my website.

And then just finding your sisterhood and community, wherever you live is so priceless and it doesn’t need to be, some of us are more like the hedge, which kinds that don’t need to gather with large groups, but just to have some sisterhood that are just people that you really can sit with and confide in and maybe practice some of the moon ritual or share the details about your body that would have otherwise been covered up.

And that’s how we really break these cycles of shame and just. Just disconnect around our bodies and our wombs and our vaginas and our vulvas that are all, just such incredible powerhouse, parts of us that when harnessed, when access, when remembered can actually end up being, these enormous center, like creation stations really of really birthing the lives and the work that we want into the world and having a bigger impact and letting that just ripple on and on forever.

Yeah. I, okay. I do actually have another question if that’s okay. Do you have time for one more? Okay. So whenever you talked about like calling in your sisterhood a question that I get all the time is that people have a very hard time finding community like this. People have expressed to me that they have a very hard time.

Finding friendships and chosen family, who they can be this way with and have these conversations where there’s not shame and where they feel that real sense of connection and belonging with each other. And it’s not just about fitting in, but it’s a, it’s about a true sense of belonging. And I have two best friends who I got a bump on one of my labia a couple summers ago and it was like, it looked a little sister or something, and I could not figure out what it was.

And it was painful and itchy. And I was like, what the hell is going on here? And I felt comfortable enough with these women to be like, Can I show you look at this, please. Have you ever experienced anything like this? Do you think this is concerning? And I literally, I sat down and opened up my legs and I like showed them and I felt no shame whatsoever.

And we came to the consensus that like, who knows what it is, but it’ll probably go away on its own and sure enough, it did. I do think. That may be rare to have people like that. So can you speak to finding that sisterhood or that circle of women that you can show up with?

No shame with the story you just described is like the story of my life, as you can imagine. Yeah, like I am totally one of those safe people for sure. And so people come to me for that in my work and as friends and in my life. But when I, I’m shopping at whole foods or something, and I’m like walking, like every five steps, see somebody I swear, seem very intimate parts are talked about very intimate things with most of the women. The truth is they’re everywhere. We’re all that way. And we’re all starving for it. So how to find it is to be it and to put yourself out there and share something vulnerable. And I guarantee that the person across from you, if you felt like that was a person you wanted to have that closeness with will immediately, echo with a similar experience or story or symptom or something like that, that they, it’s really everyone.

So I guess like maybe different, parts of the world or different just communities have different vibes. And of course I’m over here in California where there’s the vibe, is just, my kid goes to the Waldorf school in town. Like that kind of thing. Everybody’s. Yeah, there’s a lot of that here.

And the more, actually the older that I get, the less crunchy that I get. It’s obviously I talk about these things real openly, but I’m, I’m not I’m just not as extreme in some of those ways, but the truth is all the women that come to me, like maybe I’m not for everyone.

And I’m, I know that I’m not for everyone. And this kind of work but the language of our bodies is universal. If you reach out and it doesn’t feel like you’re received and the way that you were hoping, or it feels like you, gosh, if you feel shamed or anything like that, then that is obviously not your people.

But I think you’ll be instead surprised that a lot of people actually are starving for that kind of connection and those kinds of conversations. And that it won’t, you won’t have to look far, I guess that’s what I’m getting at. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. That’s the same answer I give people is you got to put yourself out there, like you can’t expect people to come to you.

You’ve got to actually put yourself out there and show that you’re a safe space for that. And then that gives people permission to show up and be vulnerable as well. Yes. And start them early so that it’s not a shocking conversation, where it’s like we should be beyond that. I know that some of our parents, our grandparents were very like hush, private, that kind of thing.

But. I teach this in my birth class is like the intimacy of birth and like of getting close to someone and them seeing everything, like down to will you share your shame with me? Will, can we really go there together? And that, that it’s actually one of my favorite things is it was the beauty of the, and the realness of that intimacy in a family.

But it can definitely also be with your friends or, your siblings, which we were not raised that way. So my little sister, so exciting is pregnant for the first time. And she’s just been such a long time coming. She’s wanted it forever. And I get to be her midwife. So I know. And so it’s just and it’s going to heal us.

Like it’s really what I mean. And obviously this is all about her and her birth journey, but us as sisters, actual blood sisters, that intimacy. Heals us because we are all human. And yeah, that’s so special. I’m so happy for you. I’m so excited for, I felt the same way. One of, one of the friends that I was referring to that I, spread Eagle and was like, look at this bump on my vagina or actually was on my Lavia.

She invited me her last birth was an at home water birth. And it was so special when she, and she invited me to come over and be there for that birth. And it was a dream come true to watch that happen. And I never attended someone else’s birth before. And it was just, it was so magical. And you have a bond with someone like that, that it never goes away.

And it just brings so much intimacy and closeness. And like you said, intimacy heals. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Sure. Of course. All right. Kay. I want to be respective of your time, so thank you so much for being here and we will have links for all the things that you mentioned in the show notes of this episode, and I’m just so grateful for you and for you just occupying this space with me today.

So thank you. Thank you, Lindsay. Thanks so much for having me on and thank you everyone for listening, and we really are just all in this together. So I’m wishing you all a very blessed and healing journey, gentle, 📍 but powerful and just so much growth. did you enjoy the show? I’d really appreciate it. If you took a few moments to rate the podcast,

Into the world.

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