The Mind-Body Approach to Healing Pelvic Pain with Rachel Gofman

[00:00:00] Hey everybody, welcome back to the Heal With Grace podcast.
[00:00:03] Today we have a guest who's gonna tell us
[00:00:05] and share with us everything you need to know
[00:00:08] about pelvic pain and everything that goes with it.
[00:00:11] She's going to demystify
[00:00:13] so much of what you've probably been told is wrong with you
[00:00:16] or maybe you haven't been told
[00:00:17] there is actually much wrong with you.
[00:00:19] And we're gonna talk exactly what's going on
[00:00:21] in your nervous system,
[00:00:23] where the pelvic pain
[00:00:24] and associated symptoms are coming from.
[00:00:26] Rachel Goffman is a doctor of physical therapy
[00:00:29] and pelvic pain coach who helps women
[00:00:31] heal chronic pelvic pain
[00:00:32] using a holistic mind-body approach.
[00:00:35] Her own healing journey inspired her to pursue this work
[00:00:38] and she now supports others through their paths to recovery.
[00:00:41] With experience in both clinical care and coaching,
[00:00:44] Rachel empowers her clients to not only heal their pain
[00:00:47] but become more deeply rooted in themselves
[00:00:49] and their lives.
[00:00:50] Her approach blends expert knowledge
[00:00:53] with compassionate guidance,
[00:00:54] offering support to feel safe in the body,
[00:00:57] move freely and build more intentional,
[00:01:00] connected relationships with themselves,
[00:01:02] others and the world around them.
[00:01:05] I forgot to mention at the end of this episode
[00:01:07] to check out the links below in the show notes
[00:01:10] if you want to learn more from Rachel,
[00:01:12] work with her.
[00:01:13] So please check that out if you are interested
[00:01:16] and without further ado,
[00:01:19] here you go.
[00:01:20] Hey there and welcome to Heal with Grace.
[00:01:23] I'm your host Grace Secker
[00:01:24] and I'm a holistic licensed therapist
[00:01:26] and nervous system coach who believes that the chronic
[00:01:29] and often unseen symptoms you're living with
[00:01:31] are a sign of something deeper going on.
[00:01:34] A sign that your nervous system needs attention.
[00:01:37] In each episode, I'll share the science
[00:01:38] behind the most common chronic health disorders
[00:01:41] plus holistic health tips
[00:01:43] using mental, physical and spiritual practices.
[00:01:46] You'll hear what I've learned in my journey
[00:01:47] and the true stories from our trusted guests
[00:01:50] so you can feel less alone in your experience
[00:01:52] and give yourself grace
[00:01:53] no matter what you're going through.
[00:01:55] So without further ado,
[00:01:57] settle in and get cozy.
[00:01:58] It's time to heal with grace.
[00:02:01] Hello, Rachel.
[00:02:03] Thank you so, so much for being here.
[00:02:05] I think today's episode is gonna be really powerful.
[00:02:07] I'm so happy to be here.
[00:02:08] Thanks for having me.
[00:02:09] Yeah, so I just want to jump right in
[00:02:12] and first let's help people understand who are you?
[00:02:15] How did you come to be the pelvic pain coach?
[00:02:18] Sure.
[00:02:19] So my name is Rachel Goffman.
[00:02:20] I am a doctor of physical therapy
[00:02:22] and pelvic pain coach
[00:02:23] and I help women heal their chronic pelvic pain
[00:02:26] through a holistic mind-body approach
[00:02:28] while returning to living full and empowered lives
[00:02:31] while they heal.
[00:02:32] So I always say that this path chose me
[00:02:35] for better or for worse.
[00:02:36] As it has many of us.
[00:02:39] As it has just so many of us.
[00:02:41] I wish it happened to any other way.
[00:02:43] Yes, of course, but it couldn't have.
[00:02:44] So I myself had, well,
[00:02:47] a whole lot of mind-body disorder conditions
[00:02:50] but pelvic pain really like uprooted my entire life
[00:02:54] and kind of forced me to actually do the work
[00:02:57] that mind-body healing required finally
[00:02:59] after decades.
[00:03:01] And so I deeply, deeply, deeply believe
[00:03:04] that this is the work that's so needed in the world
[00:03:06] and so many folks are missing
[00:03:08] when they're getting spun around
[00:03:10] what I call the medical merry-go-round
[00:03:11] in the system being given temporary fixes
[00:03:14] to very real debilitating physical symptoms
[00:03:17] but aren't really getting at the root cause
[00:03:19] which for so many of us is feeling chronically unsafe
[00:03:21] in our nervous systems.
[00:03:22] And so the work I do is to help people really unravel that
[00:03:26] and really find authentic safety in their nervous systems
[00:03:29] and ultimately heal their symptoms.
[00:03:31] Okay, there's a few questions I wanna ask around that.
[00:03:34] What first and foremost,
[00:03:36] so people understand what we mean by pelvic pain
[00:03:38] which it might sound obvious
[00:03:40] but what are some common
[00:03:42] if there are common explanations
[00:03:44] I'm gonna say explanations like in quotes
[00:03:46] or diagnoses and quotes
[00:03:48] that people might receive.
[00:03:49] Yeah, I love the word labels.
[00:03:52] Like I say labels, right?
[00:03:53] Cause diagnoses are just the labels.
[00:03:55] So things, so my diagnoses, I'll say it were those
[00:03:58] were unprovoked filbidinia,
[00:04:00] edendoloneralgia,
[00:04:01] interstitial cystitis.
[00:04:03] Those are mine.
[00:04:04] Other people could also have vaginismus.
[00:04:07] They could have pelvic floor dysfunction,
[00:04:09] hypertonic pelvic floor,
[00:04:11] coccidinia,
[00:04:12] asiditis function,
[00:04:14] just chronic pelvic pain as a broad term,
[00:04:17] adenomyosis, endometriosis.
[00:04:19] Those are a little bit different
[00:04:20] cause there is a structural component.
[00:04:21] However, there's a lot of discussion around
[00:04:24] how that pain actually is constructed
[00:04:25] which we don't have to get too deep into
[00:04:27] but just FYI,
[00:04:28] that could also be helped with mind body work.
[00:04:31] What else?
[00:04:32] Oh, levator, anion syndrome, so many.
[00:04:34] There's so many.
[00:04:35] Yeah.
[00:04:37] Yes, the labels are so many
[00:04:41] and I know that it's really important to note
[00:04:43] because people will hang on to them, right?
[00:04:45] So much to where they're like,
[00:04:46] well, no, but I have this.
[00:04:48] Yeah, I mean, that's what I did, right?
[00:04:50] And because they sound really real, right?
[00:04:52] And to be clear, like they are real
[00:04:55] in that they are labeling a description of sensations
[00:04:59] in a specific part of the body
[00:05:00] lasting for three to six months, right?
[00:05:03] But what so many of us when we're patients
[00:05:05] do not understand is most of these diagnoses
[00:05:08] are diagnoses of exclusion.
[00:05:09] Meaning they just do that.
[00:05:11] They label it from the location and duration
[00:05:13] and there is no like ultimate test
[00:05:17] that's saying you have this structural like problem
[00:05:20] that is the underlying mechanism.
[00:05:22] It's saying you have these sensations,
[00:05:23] we don't know why it's lasted this long.
[00:05:25] Here's your label.
[00:05:27] But what happens to so many of us
[00:05:29] because I was in that boat too, right?
[00:05:31] As we get this label, we're told it is incurable
[00:05:35] and that becomes kind of a death sentence.
[00:05:38] It becomes this belief that takes so much to unwind.
[00:05:44] And I think that is something that so many of us
[00:05:46] have to deal with when working through
[00:05:49] unraveling these symptoms.
[00:05:51] How did you come to the mind body work in your journey?
[00:05:54] Which time?
[00:05:55] Ah, air.
[00:05:58] So I'll start with my original quickly
[00:06:00] and then we'll get into pelvic pain.
[00:06:01] So I first got into mind body work
[00:06:05] slash discovered mind body work for myself
[00:06:08] with chronic low back painless sciatica
[00:06:11] which happened in college.
[00:06:12] I had a traumatic incident that I did not connect
[00:06:15] with the very sequential onset
[00:06:17] of chronic back painless sciatica.
[00:06:20] I went through a whole like two and a half years
[00:06:22] of pub PT and injections was no relief.
[00:06:26] My father who is the least woo person in the world
[00:06:29] was like listening to the Howard Stern show
[00:06:31] and said, hey, there's a book called Healing Back Pain.
[00:06:34] Why don't you check it out?
[00:06:35] And I was like, sure, I'll read a book.
[00:06:37] I read this book in one night
[00:06:39] and like bawled my eyes out
[00:06:40] because I was like, oh, can I swear on your podcast?
[00:06:43] Yes.
[00:06:44] I was like, oh, shit.
[00:06:46] Because basically what I'd come to understand
[00:06:48] from reading this book was what happened to me
[00:06:50] emotionally happened to me physically
[00:06:52] and actually have to deal with that
[00:06:54] in order to heal this debilitating pain.
[00:06:57] And so that was a little bit of a book cure.
[00:06:58] Honestly, like I read the book.
[00:07:00] I was like, my body is safe.
[00:07:01] I kind of did the work
[00:07:02] of like getting back to exercise and movement
[00:07:04] and being less fearful of my body.
[00:07:06] And like within six months, I was kind of good.
[00:07:08] So that was like step one, my body feeling for me.
[00:07:12] Then I had what I call a year and a half off
[00:07:15] but like I had chronic migraines
[00:07:17] and like palpitations and other symptoms
[00:07:20] that just I didn't name as being like chronic
[00:07:23] in the way that my back pain was.
[00:07:24] So I was like, oh, this is fine.
[00:07:26] I'm totally fine.
[00:07:27] And then I had a retraumatizing incident
[00:07:29] that happened about a year and a half,
[00:07:31] you know, between my back pain
[00:07:34] and the onset of pelvic pain.
[00:07:35] And within a week, I developed what I thought
[00:07:38] was an infection.
[00:07:41] I thought maybe it was like BV or yeast
[00:07:44] or maybe an STI and I was really panicking about that.
[00:07:47] And so I went to the doctor, I got checked out.
[00:07:49] All the tests came back negative.
[00:07:51] And I was like, well, that's impossible.
[00:07:53] I feel terrible.
[00:07:54] Test me again.
[00:07:55] I get tested again.
[00:07:57] Everything's negative.
[00:07:58] And she's like, okay, well, you know,
[00:07:59] try this medication.
[00:08:00] Maybe it's BV, subclinical.
[00:08:02] Oh, that was a good one.
[00:08:03] Subclinical, BV.
[00:08:06] That gets biotics.
[00:08:07] Didn't help.
[00:08:08] Then she gives me yeast medication.
[00:08:09] Long story short, I go round and around and around
[00:08:11] getting testing and testing and testing,
[00:08:13] getting thrown these random medications
[00:08:15] with no actual evidence of infection.
[00:08:17] And sometimes it's getting worse and worse and worse.
[00:08:20] And so I'm like, okay.
[00:08:23] I see like maybe 10 more doctors
[00:08:26] who all do basically the same thing.
[00:08:28] Plus I get a transvaginal ultrasound.
[00:08:29] I get a pelvic MRI, I get a brain MRI.
[00:08:32] I think I have a mast.
[00:08:33] Symptoms at this point are spreading.
[00:08:35] I have not only a clover burning.
[00:08:37] I have clitoral pain.
[00:08:37] I now have like burning with urination.
[00:08:40] I have UTI symptoms.
[00:08:41] Things are just expanding.
[00:08:43] And I'm dying.
[00:08:44] This is it.
[00:08:45] I'm dying.
[00:08:46] This is the end.
[00:08:47] And so basically once I left the neurologist's appointment
[00:08:51] and I had my scans done
[00:08:52] and they're like nothing is wrong with you basically.
[00:08:54] Like you have these diagnoses.
[00:08:56] I was given over the course of a year of getting assessed.
[00:09:00] I was given those three diagnoses
[00:09:02] because I couldn't freaking figure out what's going on with me.
[00:09:05] But I was only being offered like temporary,
[00:09:07] expensive and invasive treatments.
[00:09:09] I was being offered injections.
[00:09:11] I was being offered neuroblox.
[00:09:12] I was being offered antidepressants and suppositories
[00:09:16] and all of these things where I'm like,
[00:09:18] if you told me this could heal me, I might be down.
[00:09:23] But all you're telling me is like
[00:09:25] this may help temporarily
[00:09:27] but like probably not for that long.
[00:09:29] And I was like, I don't wanna do this.
[00:09:31] You can't explain to me what's happening or why.
[00:09:33] So I basically had to,
[00:09:35] I was forced to kind of exit the system.
[00:09:38] So like there's nothing more here for me.
[00:09:39] And I refused to do like what I just talked about
[00:09:44] in an email was a temporary treatment trap, right?
[00:09:47] I was like getting stuck in the cycle
[00:09:48] of temporary relief over and over and over.
[00:09:51] And like I was like,
[00:09:51] I don't even believe this was happening with me.
[00:09:53] So I don't wanna do this.
[00:09:55] So I was devastated.
[00:09:56] I was like, what do you do now?
[00:09:58] And I honestly never exactly remember
[00:10:03] how I got back to the mind body approach.
[00:10:06] But somehow some way I stumbled on someone's story online
[00:10:11] that was talking about healing pelvic pain.
[00:10:13] I think it was IC through a mind body approach.
[00:10:16] And I was like, okay, okay, this is possible.
[00:10:19] This is possible.
[00:10:22] And then I found Nicole Saxe work.
[00:10:24] And I was like, okay, I love how she talks about this.
[00:10:27] I'm building belief that I'm not quite ready
[00:10:29] to like go all in.
[00:10:31] And then I heard Dr. Howard Schuvener talk about
[00:10:36] pelvic pain being a really common place
[00:10:38] that mind body syndromes and symptoms show up.
[00:10:41] And my medicalized brain really had to hear it
[00:10:46] from a physician.
[00:10:47] I just was not ready to hear it
[00:10:50] from anybody who was not like a medically trained person.
[00:10:55] And so once I heard that from him,
[00:10:56] I was like, okay, I'm like choosing to do this.
[00:11:01] But like, what do I do?
[00:11:04] Because I was so scared.
[00:11:06] And what was also different about pelvic pain
[00:11:08] versus back pain, like yes, with back pain,
[00:11:10] I did have structural stuff.
[00:11:12] Like on my MRI, I had a, you know, a hernia disc,
[00:11:14] L5S1, I had bulging discs.
[00:11:16] But I had read so much
[00:11:17] about how those were normal abnormalities.
[00:11:19] I was like so much more willing to accept that
[00:11:22] as a normal abnormality.
[00:11:24] But when it came to pelvic pain,
[00:11:26] I had like very real redness.
[00:11:28] Like my bubble was red.
[00:11:30] I had in my urine culture,
[00:11:32] I would have like positivity for like blood
[00:11:34] and some like nitrates, but no bacteria on culture.
[00:11:37] But I was like, something is wrong.
[00:11:38] Something is wrong, right?
[00:11:40] So I don't, and my muscles were obviously really tight.
[00:11:42] And I was like, okay, I pelvic floor dysfunction, right?
[00:11:44] So I had all of these like physical signs
[00:11:46] that I had a really hard time believing
[00:11:50] were like quote unquote,
[00:11:51] mind body syndrome, neuroplastic TMS.
[00:11:54] And so it took me a lot more work to believe
[00:11:58] that my body was actually safe and okay.
[00:12:01] And this work was sufficient to eliminate my symptoms.
[00:12:05] I'm really, really happy that you noted that.
[00:12:07] Like, especially the journey
[00:12:09] because that is so much more common than we realize.
[00:12:13] That is very similar to my journey,
[00:12:15] different types of symptoms,
[00:12:16] but like so many different ways of coming to this work
[00:12:18] and being stuck in symptoms for years
[00:12:22] after actually healing some, not realizing that's my body,
[00:12:25] right?
[00:12:26] It's just, it's so common because it highlights
[00:12:30] the true impact or what am I trying to say?
[00:12:35] The hold that our brain has
[00:12:38] on thinking a certain way about health,
[00:12:40] which how could we not, right?
[00:12:42] Like it's everywhere.
[00:12:43] That's what we've learned growing up.
[00:12:44] It's the Western medical model in the culture.
[00:12:46] Of course, like so much compassion for my past self
[00:12:51] and all the clients I hear from who are freaking out
[00:12:53] because of course, right?
[00:12:56] We've never learned anything different
[00:12:59] and we've been trained to trust medical professionals
[00:13:02] and that they have all the answers.
[00:13:04] And so when they don't, we are terrified
[00:13:09] because we don't even know
[00:13:10] that we could look for other answers, right?
[00:13:12] Like it feels so like counter what we've been trained to do.
[00:13:17] Yeah. And it is scary to go there.
[00:13:20] It's so scary to go mind body.
[00:13:22] We just want to fix.
[00:13:23] We just want to fix.
[00:13:24] We don't want to do any of this.
[00:13:25] Like we don't want to do any of this.
[00:13:28] And I say that all the time.
[00:13:29] I'm like, I, so I love Nicole Sacks.
[00:13:31] Her work was so helpful to me in so many ways.
[00:13:33] And she often says this phrase, which I love so much,
[00:13:35] which is like, you know,
[00:13:36] life's a choice between what hurts and what hurts worse.
[00:13:39] And for a really long time,
[00:13:41] I was basically choosing pain
[00:13:43] even though it was like 10 out of 10,
[00:13:45] literally all day every day,
[00:13:46] my system could not wrap its head around.
[00:13:50] Like doing the rest of it,
[00:13:52] doing the actual like setting boundaries,
[00:13:54] taking care of myself, speaking up, using my voice.
[00:13:57] Like that felt literally impossible.
[00:14:01] And so my system was like, yeah,
[00:14:02] we're just gonna keep you in pain.
[00:14:03] Until I was like, oh, I actually do have to do this.
[00:14:08] Yes. Yes.
[00:14:09] And it's really scary the whole time.
[00:14:12] Yeah, a hundred percent.
[00:14:13] You kind of, you didn't say these exact words,
[00:14:15] but you kind of mentioned,
[00:14:17] there's a lot of beliefs around pelvic pain
[00:14:19] and make it really hard to heal,
[00:14:20] specifically because, well, I don't know,
[00:14:22] I'll ask you, but I'm assuming
[00:14:24] specifically because there's a lot of talk
[00:14:25] around normal abnormalities and back pain and sciatica.
[00:14:30] Back pain is like the original
[00:14:31] mind, body, healing methodology,
[00:14:33] not methodology, but symptom, if you will, right?
[00:14:37] Why is pelvic pain so hard?
[00:14:39] I think several reasons.
[00:14:40] I think one, first of all,
[00:14:42] like we just hear less stories about pelvic pain
[00:14:45] because people don't want to talk about it.
[00:14:47] I genuinely didn't think I would ever share my story,
[00:14:52] literally ever.
[00:14:53] I promise you, sometimes I sit here and I'm like,
[00:14:56] wow, I can't believe, I tell people all this every day.
[00:15:02] But I do it because people telling their stories
[00:15:04] was so helpful for me
[00:15:06] because I was not hearing very many stories.
[00:15:09] So that's one is just feeling like you're kind of alone
[00:15:12] in your symptoms, like feeling,
[00:15:14] like A, it may not be possible
[00:15:16] for you and your specific symptoms
[00:15:17] and B, there's so much shame.
[00:15:20] Like we can't talk about it with like a friend
[00:15:22] or a family member in the same way we can back pain.
[00:15:25] Like back pain is literally dinner conversation, right?
[00:15:28] But people like don't want to talk about their bubbles
[00:15:31] or their bladders or whatever else is happening, right?
[00:15:34] Like it feels so different from like a social
[00:15:36] emotional level, right?
[00:15:38] So that's one thing.
[00:15:40] I think also, right, there is this aspect
[00:15:42] where once you learn, for example,
[00:15:44] take back pain, for example,
[00:15:45] once you learn that your back is like kind of safe and okay,
[00:15:49] it is safe to stop monitoring it for a new problem, right?
[00:15:56] With pelvic pain, like first of all,
[00:15:58] you have to pee a couple of times a day.
[00:16:00] So you do have to actually like sometimes tune in
[00:16:03] to that part of your body
[00:16:05] and you could get a new infection.
[00:16:08] Like that is actually possible.
[00:16:11] So there is this kind of piece
[00:16:13] of having to learn to tune into that part of the body
[00:16:19] and not go straight into panic, right?
[00:16:22] And so that can feel like really, really, really hard to do.
[00:16:26] And there's no way to fully ignore it
[00:16:28] and just say, you're okay, you're fine.
[00:16:30] I'm like, they're running my attention
[00:16:32] in the same way you can for some other symptoms.
[00:16:35] And what I still want to say is like,
[00:16:37] it's still possible to heal.
[00:16:38] I think there's this big story on pelvic pain
[00:16:40] being like the hardest pain to heal from.
[00:16:43] And I just want to validate, like I felt that way.
[00:16:45] So many clients feel that way.
[00:16:47] And what I also want to say is like,
[00:16:49] it feels the hardest for us who have it.
[00:16:54] And that's why our nervous system chose it
[00:16:57] because it's so good at keeping us fixated, right?
[00:17:03] But people will also say that about their migraines
[00:17:05] or about their back pain or about their foot pain, right?
[00:17:08] So we only ever have our own experience
[00:17:10] and I just want to name like everyone's experience is valid.
[00:17:13] But what I don't want is for you to use that as a reason
[00:17:16] why you believe it's not possible for you to heal.
[00:17:19] People heal from chronic pelvic pain every day
[00:17:21] and there's no reason why you can't do that too.
[00:17:25] Yes, there's so, and I'm going to assuming too,
[00:17:28] there's just a lot of like you said,
[00:17:29] people don't want to talk about it.
[00:17:30] So there's secrecy.
[00:17:32] I mean, there's so much meaning that goes around,
[00:17:34] not only being a woman, but also, yeah,
[00:17:37] vulva, vagina, I see bladder,
[00:17:39] like all of that down there for a long time,
[00:17:41] we've had messages, whether that is over
[00:17:44] or underneath the surface, right?
[00:17:46] Of like, oh, private secrecy, isolation,
[00:17:50] like we don't talk about that, that's vulnerable.
[00:17:53] So in my mind, I mean, knowing my body work,
[00:17:56] yeah, your brain's gonna send a bunch of danger signals
[00:17:58] to that part of your body because, yeah, it's been there.
[00:18:01] And often, right?
[00:18:03] Like this is not always the case at all.
[00:18:05] And I would say like 30 to 40% of the people that I see
[00:18:10] who have a pelvic pain symptom
[00:18:13] have a history of some kind of sexual trauma.
[00:18:17] And so there is a lot of fear and story
[00:18:22] and a lot of worry about that part of the body
[00:18:25] and a lot of protectiveness, right?
[00:18:27] Which is so like logical, right?
[00:18:31] But there is this aspect of befriending
[00:18:34] that part of the body that can feel so hard to do
[00:18:37] when you've had that rupture.
[00:18:39] And it's not that that can't happen anywhere else,
[00:18:42] of course, but that is a pattern
[00:18:44] that does come up quite a bit.
[00:18:45] And there's this aspect of sensitivity,
[00:18:47] like emotionally and physically
[00:18:50] that does need to be addressed.
[00:18:53] Yeah.
[00:18:54] What would you say when people are just kind of connecting
[00:18:56] those dots of like, oh, I guess I have had this trauma
[00:19:00] in my past or these experiences,
[00:19:03] how does that actually contribute?
[00:19:05] How do I connect the dots there?
[00:19:07] What happened?
[00:19:07] Yeah.
[00:19:08] So to put it as simply as possible,
[00:19:11] like pain is protection, right?
[00:19:15] And so if we have something that our body feels is unsafe
[00:19:19] and unsafe happened to us,
[00:19:22] the brain can send out these danger signals to say,
[00:19:24] like protect, protect, like not like do not enter,
[00:19:29] but kind of do not enter, right?
[00:19:30] Like this part of the body is not safe.
[00:19:33] Alert, alert, attend, like don't keep going, don't pass go.
[00:19:37] And so it can just be helpful to understand
[00:19:40] that it's the nervous system's way of keeping you safe,
[00:19:44] of saying, of alerting you to something is wrong here.
[00:19:47] And like it needs your care and attention.
[00:19:50] It's not trying to harm you.
[00:19:52] Pain feels like it's harming,
[00:19:54] but it's, yeah, it's getting your attention.
[00:19:56] And guess what?
[00:19:57] It's gonna speak really, really loudly.
[00:19:59] And the way that in my own experience, right?
[00:20:02] So this, I can never tell anyone else
[00:20:03] this is how their pain is working.
[00:20:07] But I really do feel like my pain,
[00:20:09] my pelvic pain specifically was basically setting boundaries
[00:20:12] that I wasn't able to verbalize myself.
[00:20:15] And that's not everyone's story, right?
[00:20:18] But I think it can be helpful once you make those
[00:20:20] connections to soften your relationship
[00:20:26] with those sensations.
[00:20:28] Because for so long it can feel like your body
[00:20:30] has betrayed you, right?
[00:20:31] That was my experience.
[00:20:31] I was like convinced my body had just turned against me
[00:20:35] and was punishing me.
[00:20:36] That's such a common experience
[00:20:37] that other people tell me to, right?
[00:20:39] The feeling like the body has betrayed them.
[00:20:41] And the truth I've learned after my own experience
[00:20:44] and I'm working with so many clients
[00:20:45] is the body is literally always on your side.
[00:20:48] The nervous system is literally always on your side.
[00:20:50] You have, your fates are intertwined, right?
[00:20:55] And so I think that reconceptualizing those symptoms
[00:21:00] and sensations, not as an enemy
[00:21:02] but as communication and protection
[00:21:04] is one of the most healing things
[00:21:05] that we can do for ourselves.
[00:21:06] And it allows a much softer and allied,
[00:21:10] self-allied way forward.
[00:21:13] That is, I don't have the similar experience
[00:21:16] with pelvic pain but fatigue and shutdown and migraines
[00:21:19] and like my collapse is definitely a way
[00:21:22] to set boundaries for me, 100%.
[00:21:25] It will set it really hard
[00:21:27] when I didn't learn how to.
[00:21:29] Totally.
[00:21:30] I remember reading the Varmate's book
[00:21:32] when the body says no.
[00:21:34] And I just remember that phrase,
[00:21:36] I read the title and I was like, oh my God.
[00:21:37] And then I read the book and I was like, oh my God.
[00:21:44] And there were just so many pieces, right?
[00:21:45] Once you get kind of into this work,
[00:21:47] I mean, my way of, I wanna say of healing
[00:21:53] but I'm somebody who like really intellectualizes
[00:21:55] which is part of my problem.
[00:21:56] But I like, I'm an information gatherer, right?
[00:22:00] So I kind of read like everybody's stuff.
[00:22:03] I try to learn from everybody.
[00:22:05] And at the end of the day,
[00:22:06] everyone's kind of saying the same thing, right?
[00:22:10] Which is good.
[00:22:11] That's good news, right?
[00:22:14] Yeah, yes, it's good news.
[00:22:16] And because it speaks,
[00:22:17] everyone has a different way of saying it
[00:22:19] so it speaks to different people.
[00:22:20] I was just walking to another therapist about this
[00:22:23] where he was like, oh, I loved,
[00:22:26] I think Alan Gordon's book is the best.
[00:22:28] And someone else was like,
[00:22:29] actually I really love how Nicole Sax speaks about it now.
[00:22:31] And we recognized, oh, well, she has a feminine perspective.
[00:22:34] This is a masculine perspective
[00:22:35] and there's different wording and it's great.
[00:22:38] We have so many different courses.
[00:22:40] I love it, different flavors, right?
[00:22:42] And it's like, yeah, you're absolutely right.
[00:22:44] Like how someone says it
[00:22:46] will just speak to a different audience.
[00:22:47] Like everyone needs a voice that they resonate with, right?
[00:22:50] And I truly say like there could not be
[00:22:52] enough people in this space.
[00:22:53] Like there could not be enough voices in this space
[00:22:56] even if we're all kind of saying the same thing.
[00:22:59] Great, great, right?
[00:23:02] Yeah.
[00:23:03] Okay, so what are some other common struggles
[00:23:05] that people have had before,
[00:23:07] maybe in their life before maybe the pelvic pain
[00:23:10] has come on?
[00:23:11] What are some themes that you see?
[00:23:13] Yeah, so in general some like personality traits
[00:23:16] I would say, perfectionism, people pleasing, goodism.
[00:23:21] Like really look at a high pressure living, I would say.
[00:23:25] And a theme that I have found with a lot of my clients
[00:23:29] and also was a factor in my own,
[00:23:32] a big factor in my own experience
[00:23:34] is a lot of body image and eating disorder behavior.
[00:23:39] And so many of us have had the experience
[00:23:42] of kind of just hating our bodies our whole lives, right?
[00:23:45] And that is societal, that is cultural,
[00:23:47] that is the, I mean, soup we all swim in.
[00:23:51] And what it leads to is chronic self-criticism
[00:23:56] and self-neglect and really suppressing
[00:24:00] our like hunger, like the cues from our bodies.
[00:24:03] Like it's so funny because I had to do
[00:24:06] my own eating disorder healing work
[00:24:08] as I was healing chronic pelvic pain.
[00:24:10] I started off, it's so funny, it's not that funny
[00:24:12] but it's kind of funny.
[00:24:13] I started off trying to heal my chronic pelvic pain
[00:24:16] through diet shocker because my belief, right,
[00:24:19] was like, oh, I'm just chronically inflamed
[00:24:22] and that's the reason why, right?
[00:24:23] And so anti-inflammatory diet,
[00:24:25] I did like the crazy medical medium diet
[00:24:27] for like a couple of years.
[00:24:28] Like I really got into like eating disorder,
[00:24:31] quote unquote having,
[00:24:32] but it was the worst thing I could have done
[00:24:35] because I became terrified of literally all food,
[00:24:38] literally all food and all toxins
[00:24:40] and all like possible things that could ever,
[00:24:42] inflame me, which is like the world
[00:24:46] and everything became unsafe.
[00:24:48] And I literally like didn't believe my cues
[00:24:53] for like hunger, right?
[00:24:55] And so if we learn to disconnect,
[00:24:57] I've been dieting since I was like, I don't know, 11.
[00:25:00] And so I learned very early
[00:25:02] to disconnect from the signals on my body
[00:25:05] and mistrust, believe that the signals
[00:25:06] from my body were wrong, right?
[00:25:09] And so that patterning will lead us
[00:25:12] to chronic self-disconnection and disembodiment.
[00:25:15] And so what healing asks us to do is the opposite, right?
[00:25:19] Is to tune in, to reconnect, to embody.
[00:25:22] And that felt impossible and foreign as fuck
[00:25:25] because I had never done that.
[00:25:29] And so this took me a while.
[00:25:31] I'm not ever gonna sit here and be like,
[00:25:32] yeah, I just understood it and I was fine.
[00:25:34] Now this took me years, right?
[00:25:36] And so when clients come to me and they're like,
[00:25:38] I've been doing this for three months,
[00:25:40] why isn't it better?
[00:25:41] I have so much compassion and so much like patience for them.
[00:25:45] And I'm like, listen, some folks, it's really fast.
[00:25:47] For most people, it's not, right?
[00:25:51] And how can we allow the journey to take
[00:25:52] as long as it takes?
[00:25:53] And if you're healing eating disorders
[00:25:56] alongside chronic pain, like we have to have
[00:25:59] so much space for that.
[00:26:01] And the journey that's happening on kind of both fronts,
[00:26:05] which do for sure overlap, right?
[00:26:07] But there is like different stories around each.
[00:26:10] I mean, I remember when I was first realizing
[00:26:12] I had to do eating disorder recovery as part of my healing,
[00:26:15] I was like, well, I can't gain weight.
[00:26:17] Like for me to get around the idea
[00:26:19] that I could gain weight took me literally like a year.
[00:26:22] So everyone's at their own pace.
[00:26:24] You get there when you get there.
[00:26:26] But it was the way that I had to go
[00:26:29] to get where I am now, which is pain-free.
[00:26:32] Yeah, I think that's really important to note
[00:26:34] the commonalities between, I mean,
[00:26:37] I've talked about this on this podcast multiple times,
[00:26:39] the commonalities between eating disorders,
[00:26:40] disorder-eating and chronic symptoms,
[00:26:43] but further, more specifically, pelvic pain.
[00:26:47] I know I deal with or I work with a lot of people
[00:26:49] with IC and OAB and that there's so much disorder-eating
[00:26:53] there, how could there not?
[00:26:55] You're told a specific diet is contributing,
[00:26:58] certain foods are contributing directly to your symptoms.
[00:27:01] That's one of my biggest soapbox topics.
[00:27:04] The IC diet, I wanna burn it.
[00:27:07] Like it has ruined so many people's relationships
[00:27:11] with food and with themselves and with their bodies
[00:27:13] and beliefs around what IC is and how it comes to be.
[00:27:19] So long story short, yes, I can only imagine
[00:27:23] if that's the population you're working with.
[00:27:24] It's rampant, rampant.
[00:27:27] And of course I have IC patients too
[00:27:28] and they also had been doing a lot of all kinds of diets.
[00:27:34] Even honestly, I would say, I mean,
[00:27:36] I don't have exact statistics on this,
[00:27:38] but I would say a very large proportion,
[00:27:40] if not like all people that I work with
[00:27:44] who have chronic symptoms have had some sort of diet
[00:27:47] recommended to them and they've gone down that route
[00:27:49] and then it's become disordered
[00:27:50] and then they become fearful of food
[00:27:51] and then it makes the fear signals even worse
[00:27:54] and but they'll sit there and be like,
[00:27:57] yeah, but I have inflammation in my body.
[00:27:59] Food contributes to that.
[00:28:00] I'm like, yeah, can you actually,
[00:28:03] can you talk a little bit about that,
[00:28:04] especially when you're talking about your journey to work with?
[00:28:07] Yeah, so interesting.
[00:28:09] Yeah, so I for sure had that belief, right?
[00:28:11] This chronic inflammation is causing my symptoms, right?
[00:28:14] And here's the truth, right?
[00:28:15] Like if I did blood work all the time
[00:28:17] and my ESR and CRP were elevated,
[00:28:19] I had inflammation in my body, that was true.
[00:28:22] But inflammation in your body,
[00:28:24] especially when it's chronic,
[00:28:26] is typically due to a chronically dysregulated
[00:28:28] upregulated nervous system.
[00:28:30] It is your neuroimmune connection.
[00:28:32] You are inflamed, right?
[00:28:34] But that is probably not the cause of your pain,
[00:28:37] but it is a response to a nervous system
[00:28:39] that's under chronic threat.
[00:28:41] So you just trying to like quell the inflammation
[00:28:45] without getting to like the root cause of the nervous system
[00:28:47] being the ultimate driver of that inflammation
[00:28:50] is really not the direction to go.
[00:28:53] And the more afraid we are of food,
[00:28:57] the more we're afraid
[00:28:58] that what we're eating is inflammatory,
[00:29:00] the more system will respond with an immune response.
[00:29:03] And so we're making all of these things literally worse
[00:29:06] by being afraid of them.
[00:29:07] And that's how we see all these like new food sensitivities
[00:29:10] like emerging all the time, right?
[00:29:12] Especially with people who are like on elimination diets.
[00:29:15] And like now this thing, I can't eat it at all.
[00:29:17] I'm like, yeah, cause your system believes
[00:29:18] it's threatening, it believes it's a problem.
[00:29:21] And so it's responding with support with your immune system.
[00:29:25] Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:29:27] I actually just recorded a whole episode on that.
[00:29:29] Food is not the enemy, I think I named it
[00:29:31] because it comes up so much.
[00:29:33] And I actually don't hear a lot of people
[00:29:35] in our work talking about it.
[00:29:37] I agree.
[00:29:38] I'm shocked about that actually.
[00:29:39] I talked about that with some of my colleagues.
[00:29:40] I'm like, why are people talking more
[00:29:42] about like disorder eating inisors
[00:29:43] in like mind, body healing?
[00:29:45] It's so prevalent.
[00:29:47] Maybe we should do something.
[00:29:49] Happy to.
[00:29:53] Okay, I want to go back just a second around
[00:29:55] the common struggles that people deal with.
[00:29:57] Not just maybe in their past,
[00:30:00] but in not just personality characteristics,
[00:30:02] but what about some of the belief systems,
[00:30:04] the emotional patterns that you see
[00:30:06] with people specifically around pelvic pain?
[00:30:08] Yeah, so just a lot of shame, I would say.
[00:30:11] People who are brought up to believe
[00:30:12] that like that part of their body is dirty.
[00:30:14] That part of their body is only for their husbands
[00:30:17] that like if they have pelvic pain,
[00:30:22] like they're being like cursed.
[00:30:23] There's a lot of, I would say like religious trauma,
[00:30:27] honestly, that comes up quite a bit
[00:30:29] and really just beliefs that like they are bad
[00:30:33] because they have pelvic pain.
[00:30:35] Like they're doing morally wrong.
[00:30:37] And I think that just because of the story we have
[00:30:39] around like genitals being this like really
[00:30:45] private part, right?
[00:30:46] Private area of the body.
[00:30:48] And folks often just have this belief
[00:30:51] and they think that's something that we work
[00:30:52] to really unlearn is that fear
[00:30:55] and that shame truly.
[00:30:57] Yeah, I mean, I can only imagine
[00:31:00] when you grow up not either,
[00:31:01] not talking about it at all, right?
[00:31:04] That's like not okay to talk about your general roles
[00:31:07] or understand what's happening down there
[00:31:09] or how you should feel about it or not feel about it.
[00:31:11] And then yes, 100%, I can totally see
[00:31:15] as growing up in a religious household myself
[00:31:17] how those things can overlap
[00:31:19] and then shame so much shame that comes with
[00:31:23] what do you do or not do with that part of your body?
[00:31:25] A lot of rules and regulations around it.
[00:31:27] Yeah, and that's challenging, right?
[00:31:29] Because if folks are still in that religion, right?
[00:31:34] Honestly, I'm not necessarily the best person
[00:31:35] to work with them because I'm not religious.
[00:31:37] And so my view is so untraming
[00:31:42] that sometimes like they don't quite know, like, right?
[00:31:45] And I'm so happy to like work with them
[00:31:48] what they want to, but I'm always like this, you know,
[00:31:49] my lens is not religious.
[00:31:52] So just FYI.
[00:31:56] I've actually learned it's kind of a newish newer area
[00:31:59] I'm getting into of understanding how to kind of like
[00:32:02] open that and be with it with folks who are coming
[00:32:04] whether they're in it or not in it
[00:32:06] but understanding how to approach it
[00:32:09] with the religious lens,
[00:32:11] with getting out of that kind of community
[00:32:14] or again, if you're still in it, figuring that out.
[00:32:16] Do you know Hilary McGryan?
[00:32:18] Yes.
[00:32:19] She wrote Wisdom of the Body, I am obsessed with her.
[00:32:22] And she just came out of the book called Holy Hurt
[00:32:25] which is basically about that.
[00:32:28] So just gonna recommend
[00:32:30] because I'm currently reading it and I think she's incredible.
[00:32:32] And I, again, I'm not religious.
[00:32:33] I haven't come from a religious background
[00:32:35] but it comes up all the time
[00:32:37] because many people did, right?
[00:32:38] When you're working with people
[00:32:40] it's like good to know what that can really do
[00:32:45] to your brain and nervous system
[00:32:47] especially as it relates to chronic symptoms.
[00:32:49] Yeah.
[00:32:50] Okay, something that just came up for me
[00:32:51] that I wanna name that when we're sharing
[00:32:53] when we're talking about your,
[00:32:55] what you've learned, what you haven't learned
[00:32:56] your belief systems, you can still be
[00:32:59] in a religious standpoint
[00:33:00] you can still have beliefs around how to
[00:33:03] treat or give your body.
[00:33:05] It's more about releasing the shame from it
[00:33:08] and the beliefs and the criticism around it
[00:33:10] that I think we build up over time, right?
[00:33:13] It's your own relationship to that part of the body.
[00:33:16] That's what you're looking to shift and change.
[00:33:19] It has nothing about what you do
[00:33:20] with that part of the body with anybody else.
[00:33:23] It is how you feel towards that part of the body
[00:33:26] and the relationship you have with that part of the body.
[00:33:28] That is all that has to happen
[00:33:30] to heal a chronic symptoms.
[00:33:32] Yeah, exactly.
[00:33:33] Hi little kitty.
[00:33:36] If you're listening and not watching
[00:33:39] her cat just came into the screen.
[00:33:40] Willow came to join us.
[00:33:44] All right, another question.
[00:33:47] What is one myth about pelvic pain
[00:33:49] that you'd love to see disappear forever?
[00:33:52] Or two myths on multiple.
[00:33:55] One myth about pelvic pain I'd like to disappear forever.
[00:33:59] In like the mind body space or in general?
[00:34:03] Let's do both.
[00:34:05] Okay.
[00:34:05] If you have both.
[00:34:06] Okay, so in general, I think the belief
[00:34:10] that pelvic pain is shameful.
[00:34:18] I think that's something that like people really believe
[00:34:21] and they believe it so deeply.
[00:34:23] And I think that like if we remove the stigma,
[00:34:26] people can get help so much faster
[00:34:27] until so much less alone, so much faster.
[00:34:31] I think that's like life changing for people.
[00:34:34] From a like practical perspective,
[00:34:38] I think it's important to know
[00:34:40] even if you have like a quote unquote structural diagnosis,
[00:34:43] whether it is like pelvic forest function or IC
[00:34:46] or panoneralgia or batonismus or endometriosis,
[00:34:52] that does not mean that symptoms
[00:34:54] cannot be vastly improved or even eliminated.
[00:34:58] I think that's just like a thing
[00:34:59] people get really attached to labels,
[00:35:01] especially with pelvic pain.
[00:35:02] And I just want to be really clear on that.
[00:35:05] That you have to have sex in order to heal.
[00:35:07] That's what I hear all the time.
[00:35:09] And I think it is like,
[00:35:12] this is never blaming the person who believes this,
[00:35:15] but it is like a self coercive statement
[00:35:17] for folks who like do not want to have sex, right?
[00:35:21] And people have been told that
[00:35:23] from like parents, from practitioners,
[00:35:26] like just have sex will go away, like it's crazy.
[00:35:30] But that drives me absolutely insane
[00:35:32] and it makes me so mad.
[00:35:36] Yeah, meaning like you'll be better
[00:35:39] if you're good with sex.
[00:35:40] Yeah.
[00:35:41] That's like to try and to test your wheels.
[00:35:43] No, not even that.
[00:35:44] Like you actually have to have penetrative intercourse
[00:35:47] in order to heal your symptoms.
[00:35:49] And it's not even a goal of the client.
[00:35:53] That comes up actually so often it's crazy.
[00:35:56] Okay.
[00:35:57] This is the first time I'm like grasping that
[00:35:59] or understanding that it's something to heal.
[00:36:02] It's like a tool.
[00:36:03] Correct.
[00:36:04] Correct.
[00:36:06] Why?
[00:36:07] Pfft, patriarchy?
[00:36:09] I don't know.
[00:36:11] Like I don't know.
[00:36:12] But it's been like passed down from parents,
[00:36:16] from providers or like, you know,
[00:36:18] have a glass of wine and just like have sex
[00:36:20] and it'll be like literally, right?
[00:36:22] Y'all, my girl is literally drunk.
[00:36:25] So you haven't heard that one before.
[00:36:26] I'm happy for you.
[00:36:27] Sorry to bring it up.
[00:36:29] But I hear that actually quite frequently
[00:36:31] and it makes me like I wait.
[00:36:32] Yeah.
[00:36:33] Yeah.
[00:36:34] I was thinking like, cause I've heard like,
[00:36:36] well, I'll know when I don't have pain with sex
[00:36:38] that I'm better in a way, right?
[00:36:40] But that, yeah.
[00:36:42] So that's a goal.
[00:36:43] Like, great.
[00:36:44] Yeah.
[00:36:44] But for a lot of people it's not even a goal.
[00:36:46] They're like, I want to sit.
[00:36:47] I want to pee without freaking out.
[00:36:51] I'm listening to you on how to have sex.
[00:36:52] We can totally help you have sex.
[00:36:53] But like that does not have to be a goal
[00:36:55] just because you have help.
[00:36:57] Right, right.
[00:36:59] Okay.
[00:36:59] Okay, I'm good to know.
[00:37:00] Just to clarify.
[00:37:03] Okay.
[00:37:04] When we talk about pelvic pain
[00:37:07] and specifically pelvic floor dysfunction,
[00:37:13] can you demystify why that is not a cause for pain?
[00:37:17] Cause I hear that a lot.
[00:37:18] Well, but my pelvic floor therapist
[00:37:20] says I have a really tight pelvic floor.
[00:37:21] So like, you know, I would have pain.
[00:37:23] Sure.
[00:37:24] Yeah.
[00:37:25] So first off, we probably do have a tight pelvic floor.
[00:37:27] Right.
[00:37:28] But here's the thing, right?
[00:37:29] So I am a pelvic PT as well.
[00:37:31] I have treated patients in the clinic
[00:37:33] and people have pain with tight pelvic floors,
[00:37:37] without tight pelvic floors.
[00:37:38] They have tight pelvic floors and they don't have pain.
[00:37:39] Like the pelvic floor tension
[00:37:43] is not necessarily even correlate with pain.
[00:37:46] And if it does, it's not sort of like positive.
[00:37:49] And usually the pelvic floor
[00:37:50] hypertenicity or dysfunction activation
[00:37:53] is again due to a chronically upregulated nervous system
[00:37:57] stuck in protective mode.
[00:37:59] So that is like the culprit.
[00:38:01] And so something I often kind of frame it with clients is like,
[00:38:05] they've been to public PT traditionally, right?
[00:38:07] Where PT's are trying to like get the pelvic floor to relax
[00:38:10] by like pressing on it and trying to stretch it
[00:38:12] and like manually release it, whatever that means.
[00:38:15] But basically just kind of comes right back up, right?
[00:38:18] Because ultimately the way I think about it is like,
[00:38:21] your system is guarding, right?
[00:38:22] Your muscles are in a guarding response, right?
[00:38:25] And so how do you get a guard to relax?
[00:38:30] You don't like press on them and say, stop guarding, right?
[00:38:34] Like you have to change the orders of the guard.
[00:38:36] And that's the nervous system, right?
[00:38:39] And here's the thing,
[00:38:40] I actually don't really care if you're hypotonic or not.
[00:38:42] If it's not impacting your ability to have
[00:38:44] like penetrative intercourse that you wanna be having,
[00:38:47] like I just don't think it's usually like
[00:38:49] that big of a deal functionally
[00:38:51] unless you have a big functional problem.
[00:38:54] If it's just pain that you're experiencing,
[00:38:56] you're gonna have a hypotonic pelvic floor, it's okay.
[00:39:00] It's okay.
[00:39:01] I don't know if it's just because the world I'm in now
[00:39:03] and you get feed based on what you've searched
[00:39:06] and things like that, but it feels like it seems
[00:39:08] like pelvic floor therapy is kind of having a moment
[00:39:12] right now and there's a lot of talk about it,
[00:39:14] especially new moms after giving birth.
[00:39:17] And when I hear a lot of people talk about it
[00:39:20] and like, oh, I need pelvic floor therapy
[00:39:21] or I'm going now or I start to be like,
[00:39:24] I don't know about that.
[00:39:26] So I'm happy to talk about that
[00:39:27] because I actually think there is totally a place for it,
[00:39:30] but the way that I think about it, right?
[00:39:32] Like, so first of all, delivering a baby, right?
[00:39:36] A lot happens during pregnancy,
[00:39:37] during delivering like a structural perspective, right?
[00:39:41] And sometimes folks wanna be in like a place
[00:39:44] that they feel safe to get back to function,
[00:39:48] to get back to movement, to feel like their body is okay.
[00:39:52] And if you're working with a practitioner
[00:39:53] if it's a pelvic PT, cool,
[00:39:55] that helps you feel safe to move,
[00:39:57] safe because people are often afraid of their bodies.
[00:39:59] They're like, what is this weird feeling?
[00:40:01] This hurts, is this normal?
[00:40:03] Like usually after a six-week follow-up with an OB,
[00:40:05] they're just like left out in the trenches.
[00:40:08] And so having a space that they go to
[00:40:11] that they feel like somebody they can trust
[00:40:13] is supporting them.
[00:40:14] I think that's not a problem.
[00:40:15] I think that's actually a good thing, right?
[00:40:16] Where I think we run into issues
[00:40:18] is when we're told they have to fix
[00:40:21] like all of these different things
[00:40:23] when their body is just simply healing
[00:40:24] and recovering from a normal process.
[00:40:27] Yes, yes.
[00:40:29] Yeah, the fix it.
[00:40:31] There's something wrong with you.
[00:40:32] Yes, yes, that's the problem.
[00:40:35] But that's a lot of marketing, right?
[00:40:37] Like that's, and like, listen, I wish it weren't.
[00:40:39] I wish that wasn't how it was framed.
[00:40:42] I think there is a way to make it more
[00:40:45] like this is just supporting you in your own recovery
[00:40:49] that your body is already doing.
[00:40:50] And if you want a place to do that here,
[00:40:52] happy to help.
[00:40:54] And that's not often how it's marketed.
[00:40:56] And I just want to like name it.
[00:40:57] That's not great.
[00:40:59] Yeah, what about outside of after giving birth?
[00:41:02] Women actually, maybe you could speak to hypermobility,
[00:41:06] hypermobile women, but in general,
[00:41:08] women who have been having some,
[00:41:10] some pain, some sensations, some issues,
[00:41:12] maybe in their told public core therapy could help
[00:41:15] and that it's tight.
[00:41:16] Yeah, so it's kind of the same thing as before.
[00:41:20] It's like, that's not the problem.
[00:41:22] And listen, like, right, if you're hypermobile,
[00:41:24] you probably do have like more holding of the muscles
[00:41:27] because the perception is I'm unstable.
[00:41:31] Are you unstable?
[00:41:32] I don't know.
[00:41:33] But your nursing perceives it to be unstable, right?
[00:41:36] And so you're going to have increased tension to stabilize
[00:41:39] the body.
[00:41:40] This is like from PT school 101,
[00:41:41] the body will always choose stability over mobility, right?
[00:41:45] And so if the fear is like I'm too mobile,
[00:41:48] it'll try to stabilize you.
[00:41:49] And a way to do that is to contract muscles.
[00:41:51] Yeah.
[00:41:52] Yeah.
[00:41:53] Not inherently a problem.
[00:41:56] Exactly.
[00:41:57] Okay.
[00:41:58] Thank you for speaking to all of these things that we hear
[00:42:01] all the time of like, well, this is tight
[00:42:04] or well, this is inflamed or well, this I've heard,
[00:42:05] I've seen this on tests, I've seen this, right?
[00:42:07] Like it's just over and over.
[00:42:09] We have to keep speaking to the normal abnormalities
[00:42:12] of the body.
[00:42:13] And that's what I got stumped on that for a while,
[00:42:16] which is why I had to like deep dive understand these things
[00:42:19] because like I couldn't accept that without understanding.
[00:42:23] Like I couldn't really go down the mind body row
[00:42:25] because I was like, no, my body's not okay.
[00:42:27] But it's like, no, no, no, this is just another
[00:42:29] normal abnormality.
[00:42:30] It's fine.
[00:42:30] Yes.
[00:42:33] Yeah.
[00:42:34] By the way, if you have not heard it yet,
[00:42:36] we say normal abnormalities because that is actually
[00:42:38] something that Dr. John Sarno termed when he,
[00:42:42] I mean, technically he's not the original founder
[00:42:44] of all this work.
[00:42:45] Mind body symptoms have been happening
[00:42:47] as long as we're human.
[00:42:48] But in the Western medical system,
[00:42:50] he was the only one.
[00:42:52] A normal abnormality is literally what it's called.
[00:42:55] Like we have our abnormalities in our bodies
[00:42:59] that are totally normal because we're human
[00:43:01] and it's, we're not perfect.
[00:43:03] So, yeah.
[00:43:05] And they're not inherently a problem
[00:43:06] just because you see them on imaging
[00:43:08] or you see them on your body.
[00:43:10] Exactly.
[00:43:11] Exactly.
[00:43:12] Yeah.
[00:43:13] All right, so as we've talked about
[00:43:17] so many different ideas, theory,
[00:43:19] you're not even theories,
[00:43:20] but like reasons behind someone might have pelvic pain
[00:43:24] along with all the labels that they may receive.
[00:43:28] Is there anything else that you feel like
[00:43:29] is important to note
[00:43:31] as we've talked about the subject?
[00:43:32] Someone, something you really need people to know.
[00:43:34] One thing I'll just say is it doesn't matter
[00:43:36] how long you've had symptoms for,
[00:43:39] you can still heal.
[00:43:41] Folks will always, not always,
[00:43:43] they'll often tell me like,
[00:43:44] well, it's been, you know, five years.
[00:43:46] I can't heal now.
[00:43:46] It's been 10 years, I can't heal now.
[00:43:48] And your nervous system can rewire anytime.
[00:43:52] Like this is like,
[00:43:53] you are neuropostic forever until you die.
[00:43:56] And so I just want to offer that's true.
[00:43:59] I think I also want to say specifically
[00:44:00] to pelvic pain in those diagnoses,
[00:44:02] like there isn't one label that is incurable.
[00:44:08] If it is a diagnosis of exclusion
[00:44:11] I'm again taking endone adenone in a separate category
[00:44:15] for now.
[00:44:18] And so critically important to say, right?
[00:44:22] We are never, ever, ever saying
[00:44:24] that symptoms are all in your head.
[00:44:26] That's like my number one thing I always have to disclaim
[00:44:29] whenever I talk about neuropostic symptoms
[00:44:30] because there's already so much medical gaslighting,
[00:44:33] especially with women, especially with pelvic pain.
[00:44:36] And there is always the sphere of like,
[00:44:38] you're telling me the same thing
[00:44:39] that that asshole doctor said,
[00:44:41] which is like, my pain isn't real, right?
[00:44:43] And I'm never, ever saying
[00:44:45] that your pain is so, so, so real.
[00:44:47] And if it's driven by the nervous system
[00:44:49] continuing to do structural physical treatments
[00:44:52] is not going to help you heal.
[00:44:54] And so we're just opening avenues of support,
[00:44:58] avenues and new directions
[00:44:59] to actually get long-term relief and resolution.
[00:45:02] And just to be open-minded,
[00:45:07] if that's something you haven't yet explored.
[00:45:09] I'm going to add a little something to that,
[00:45:11] actually, because I have recently been reading
[00:45:14] Nicole Saxe's new book, The Mind Your Body book,
[00:45:16] and she'll be like, you're going to do this work.
[00:45:19] And then you're going to, you know,
[00:45:21] your brain's going to tell you like,
[00:45:22] oh, oh, I should get this test
[00:45:24] because what if it's actually this?
[00:45:26] It's a distraction because you don't,
[00:45:28] this, the emotional work, the nervous system work
[00:45:30] is harder than anything usually you'll do.
[00:45:33] So your brain's going to keep sharing that,
[00:45:35] like, oh, you need this test
[00:45:36] or you need that test
[00:45:37] or you need this or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[00:45:40] It's treatment, right?
[00:45:41] That's normal.
[00:45:42] Just keep coming back.
[00:45:43] Yeah.
[00:45:44] Here, here.
[00:45:45] Cool.
[00:45:47] All right, Rachel, thank you, thank you so much
[00:45:49] for being here.
[00:45:50] I know this will be a really powerful episode
[00:45:52] for so many, so many of us.
[00:45:54] Yeah, happy to have you.
[00:45:56] Thank you for having me, it's been a pleasure.
[00:45:58] If this podcast means something to you,
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[00:46:24] Thanks for listening
[00:46:25] and I hope this brings you hope on your journey.