Trauma and the Pelvis
The pelvic bowl is a place where many women carry and store emotions, past trauma, shame, and blocked energy. For the most part we can go through our day to day life without a lot of awareness of our pelvis and can sometimes even feel quite disconnected from this area of our body. We can continue like this until something in our life brings up an issue for our pelvis such as a challenging fertility journey, miscarriage, childbirth, or disconnection/pain or tension during sex, painful periods or pelvic pain.
When experiencing pelvic pain, it is always good idea determine if there is a physical issue contributing to our experience of pain. However for many women there can also be mental or emotional block that is showing up through tension or pain. Additionally, it may be the case that anxiety and past trauma prevents us from getting the physical help that we need.
Signs that Trauma is Being Held in the Pelvis:
Anxiety around pelvic exams or pelvic floor physio
Feeling disconnected or numb
Pelvic pain or tension
Pain during menstrual cycle
Trauma can be defined as any experience in which our body and nervous system determined that we weren’t safe, thus sending our body into a fight or flight reaction. When we are unable to flee the situation or fight back, we respond by freezing and disconnecting from our body. We may also respond by tensing certain muscles in the pelvic region. Sometimes this trauma is directly related to the pelvis such as sexual assault, miscarriage, or birth trauma and other times the trauma is not related to the pelvis (such as attachment) trauma but we’ve learned to tense this area of the body as a response to threat. For example if it wasn’t safe to feel or express our emotions, we may have learned to tense our pelvis as a survival response when strong emotions come up.
Tension and pain in the pelvis can have a huge effect on our day to day living. The pelvic bowl is the root of the female body and in order to feel present, pleasure during intimacy, and a deeper connection to oneself, our emotions, and nature, we need to reconnect with our pelvic bowl.
The first step is to build awareness of our pelvic bowl. is to start to get curious
Do you feel a lot of fear/anxiety around the pelvis?
Do you disconnect or numb out during sex?
Is a past experience such as miscarriage, a challenging birth or sexual assault creating a fight or flight reaction throughout your pelvic bowl?
As a registered clinical counsellor and reiki practitioner specializing in reproductive health, I also offer womb healing sessions (both virtually and in person) to help women heal from past trauma and reclaim the wisdom and power of their wombs. My unique approach to womb healing combines reiki energy healing, Holistic Pelvic Care™ , shamanic journeying, and somatic therapy and counselling techniques.