do you experience pain in your vagina or deep pelvis during penetration, pap smears or pelvic exams?

I can help you have a more relaxed experience through an embodied breathework-guided pelvic exam.  

Imagine you are the beautiful, powerful queen who decides who gets to come into her throne room and receive her presence. Anyone entering would pay close attention to your presence, following your permission, your happiness, your commands. 

You are the keeper of the power a woman has that men will never have-- the ability to bring forth life through the female body. 

History and culture has subjugated women to lay down and shut up

What was your first experience of being submissive to your body being touched in ways you weren't sure about? Your mind may have said, "Chill, it's no big deal." It could have been a recommended medical procedure like a pap smear or STD check. For many females, there are also experiences of uninvited sexual touching or penetration. 

You wanted to be a good girl and just get it over with.

Maybe you didn't even know how you felt Maybe your desire changed and your permission wasn't there but you didn't feel strong enough to stop what was happening. 

GYN exams- paps & Pelvics- are a from of sexual trauma

The feeling of violation happens in big or small ways. Sometime you hide that feeling because you don't think something unreasonable was done to you. You may have paid that person to do their job, like collect a pap smear. That procedure probably got more complicated and painful when your vagina tightened and your cervix was pointed posterior and they had to open the speculum multiple times at weird, deep angles to get the cervix in view. 

I can tell you as a midwife that it can be a difficult task to get a cervix in view... or to reach a cervix with fingers, as we often do in pregnancy. Being focused on the task we have been given, we are less focused on the woman's experience and there is a feeling of rush to reach the goal and be done. She may like to remove her permission in the process, or maybe she would rather you be quick and get it done. The challenging art of being a gyn provider is to do the job and also stay tuned to the woman's experience. For comparison- mining for gems in a cave and also running the customer service at the cave entrance are two different things. I share this struggle only for your understanding of the challenge and why women often legitimately feel their gyn provider was unaware of their discomfort. Common practice standards value "getting in and out" as the best care to offer women since there is no training on how to help a women relax her pelvic floor and be embodied in the process.  

But what if it didn't have to be this way?

The gatekeeper to the pelvic floor is the nervous system

We access relaxation in the pelvis by calming the "fight and flight" response

Here are some important things to understand about why the body is working to prevent penetration, either with sex or pelvic exams. 

1. Opening your legs and opening your vagina both open your vulnerability and soften you into a feeling of powerlessness

2. Vulnerability is an easy place to feel unsafe and fear is a protective mechanism

3. Fear sends the nervous system into a "fight or flight" response, but you cannot fight or run in this vulnerable place on your back, so you emotionally "freeze"

4. Freezing the tension in your body from that first experience of fear while you were laying on our back having someone enter you will remain a place of trauma that the body got stuck in

5. Any future experience involving you laying on your back and someone entering you can trigger this frozen emotional state of fear

I do not want to be a person who triggers a woman into this place of frozen fear. I want to help you accomplish your goals of gyn care respectfully, through your invitation and permission. Therefore....

I offer an embodied pelvic exam visit 

I invite you to spend a session with me solely focused on the pelvic exam. In that hour, we will reach a place where you can access relaxation in your body and extend permission for whatever your body wants, such as a pelvic exam or pap smear or inspection of vagina, discharge or external labia. 

First we set some embodied goals that have to do both with accomplishing a task you desire, and the desire state of feeling you want in certain circumstances, such as when you have sex with your partner. 

Second, we bring your body into a relaxed state through position, breathwork, and an embodiment drop-in, which enhances your awareness of the sensations in your body. Through this process we expand in to feeling the textures of what exists, allowing the body to guide, and the breathe to follow. We may find a limiting belief, or deeper story that we will unravel and release in order to give you more access to relaxing with pelvic touch and penetration. 

Third, we practice this relaxation and breathwork during a step-wise physical exam where I am, with your permission,  touching, starting with inner knees, and watching and coaching to see you if can switch your body back to relaxation if it triggers to fear. We only proceed when the body shows permission for the next step. If you are desiring a pap smear or internal examination, we continue the breathwork and coaching to practice being able to relax tension in vaginal and pelvic floor muscles, allowing the exam, and then ending with you using your exhale as a downward guide for the speculum or examination fingers to exit your body. 

Lastly, you are sent home with written and audio guide on practicing a pleasure-focused embodiment practice to awaken your sensing and feeling of the powerful access to your body you have achieved during our session. You can take these tools into your sensuality and sexual experiences, and hopefully also be able to achieve relaxation at any future exam where you are partnering with a GYN or OB professional... feeling powerful in your part of the experience... and powerful enough to remove your permission if you sense your body says No. 

It would be a pleasure to work with you on accessing this sacred place of female openness that is in our vagina and Pelvis

I can also help you embody your female body parts

Insecure about your labia? Disconnected from your uterus? Shamed about your breasts?

I have used embodiment tools and my clinical expertise to help women achieve a state of feeling not just acceptance, but pleasure at their body. Using feminine embodiment coaching tools, we can unravel places of limited beliefs, shame, and tension and expand into feelings of pleasure, expression, and confidence.