Coming Home to a Body That Once Felt Unsafe

Pelvic Tension, Trauma, and the Journey Toward Reconnection

Photo by Aditya Saxena on Unsplash

I’d dreaded visiting a gynecologist my entire adult life, as many women do for a variety of reasons. For me, I had a history of sexual abuse and assault, including at the hands of the very first gynecologist I’d ever seen that exacerbated my anxiety and racing heart whenever I had an exam, and this wasn’t just a normal exam.

I had spent over a decade being told by my gynecological practice that the issues I was experiencing during and between periods were just part of being a woman, implying that I needed to suck it up and quit whining.

Even though I told them earnestly that the cramps were debilitating and kept me from being able to perform normal daily activities.

Even though I had to bear down like I did during childbirth to pass bloodclots the size of my palm.

Even though I would suddenly have sharp, intense pain out of nowhere that left me unable to move for several minutes until it passed.

Even though the ultrasounds they ordered revealed cysts up to 5 inches in diameter on my ovaries.

Finally, I’d had enough and decided to leave the practice and find someone new. Despite my general discomfort and anxiety over seeing a new and unfamiliar doctor and being subjected to yet another physical pelvic exam, I felt some optimism. The woman I was going to see had come highly recommended by several friends. Before the physical exam, I felt listened to and unrushed, relieved when she assured me the issues I’d described were not, in fact, remotely normal.

So I was devastated as I listened to what she had to say following the exam, however kindly she delivered the news that seemed as shocking to her as it was to me.

“When I asked you to relax your pelvic muscles, there was no change in your muscle tension at all. I’ve been practicing for many years, and I’ve never seen so much pelvic tension in a patient before. At this rate, you’re headed for incontinence and pelvic issues typical of women in their 70’s and 80’s within the next decade.”

I was in my thirties.

As I listened, I understood not only what she said, but the reasons for it as well.

My childhood was marked by numerous experiences that had left me with lifelong struggles to connect with my body and to be proud of the things it had survived, rather than resentful for the ways it had been abused. Physical abuse in my earliest years and multiple instances of sexual violence throughout my life birthed a seemingly endless stream of disdain for my body, the source of such emotional pain. And while I was only at the beginning of processing the ongoing harm, I knew my marriage was untenable as it approached its eighteenth year—because in that relationship, love was synonymous with sex and my statement of “no” was rarely respected.

Even though I understood this, I felt betrayed by my body. After everything I’d been through in my life, now I was going to have worsening health concerns as a result. I felt as if I was being punished for the things that had happened to me that I’d had no control over.

I left her office feeling lifeless as I tried to come to terms with what she was telling me. And over the next months, I came to accept what I’d learned as an inevitability.

At my new doctor’s strong recommendation, I got on a waitlist for a pelvic floor physical therapist accepted by my insurance, though I couldn’t fathom going to yet another doctor to be poked and prodded between my legs. Hadn’t enough unwanted contact happened there for a lifetime already? It turned out I never had to find out what it was like because I never ended up coming off the waitlist.

Instead, something near miraculous happened.

About two and half years after that appointment, I went for an overdue annual exam with my doctor and after the exam was finished, she asked me to step into her office.

“I can’t believe what I just saw,” she said. “You look like a completely different person in every way. The tissue is healthy and there was no excess tension today. I have never seen such a radical transformation. Please, tell me what you did, how this happened.”

I stared at her for a moment, shocked by what she’d said, elated as if I’d just been handed an unexpected gift from the universe. And then I told her.

I’d gotten even more serious in my yoga and meditation practice and started getting curious about things I had an aversion to in an attempt to continue to heal from my past. As my practice helped me continue to cultivate stillness and presence, I began to notice things. I noticed I was uncomfortable with self-touch in any way-even with allowing my hands to touch or move over my shins as I’d sit up from a seated forward fold. I noticed I was uncomfortable listening to a male practitioner on my yoga app on my phone when my feet were towards the speaker. I noticed I still thought of my body in transactional terms, that it only had value if it performed in a certain way and looked a certain way.  I got curious about where these things were coming from and how I could make progress with them.

And then one day, in the same way you read about and think is complete fiction, something shifted profoundly on my mat.

I felt the discomfort from the male voice in my yoga app while lying in supta badha konasana or reclined butterfly, noticing I wanted to snap my knees together to feel less exposed, and I deliberately placed my palms against my hip creases and told myself, aloud, that I was safe. I said it twice and then my body started shaking and I started crying. I said it over and over, and as I shook and cried, feelings of safety, self-love, and appreciation for my body keeping me alive through all the trials and tribulations in my life flooded in.

And, it seemed, the unwanted tension melted away.

It was extraordinary, a true gift.

It also wasn’t magic.

There is science behind what happened, that helps us understand the relationship between our experiences, our nervous systems, our bodies, and the ways we hold tension—and it is my mission and my passion to share what I’ve learned with others as they discover their own paths toward greater inner freedom.

A life in which peace and presence exist.

A life where body and mind are in harmony with one another.

If you’re ready to see what that might be like, to take the next steps on your own journey to transformation, I invite you to start with a free discovery call where we can have a conversation about your goals and how this work may support you.