[00:00:00] Hey, hey, hey y'all. Welcome back to another episode of the Vagina Rehab Doctor podcast. I am so excited to get into this episode today. We're going to be talking about healing your pelvic floor after a breakup. There's a very sobering topic, but I know that we need to talk about this just this past week.
I've been doing one on one discovery calls for Clients who want to work with us one on one and one of the reoccurring themes that I've been coming across is women in particularly who have either been through a divorce going through a divorce or They're going through a breakup somewhat due to pelvic floor problems like pelvic pain, sexual pain, low libido, vaginismus, but not just that.
So, you know, in a relationship you can have one or more problems. And what I've noticed is that now they are focused and determined to work on this problem so [00:01:00] that they don't struggle with some of the same issues in their next relationship. And so I want to talk about that today. How we work to heal the pelvic floor after a breakup or even how to work on healing the pelvic floor if you're wanting to prevent the dissolve of your current relationship.
Before we get into the topic today, I want to thank you for just listening to this podcast. this has been a new journey, something that I've never done before. And I just want to say thank you for showing up for listening. I've been getting more feedback from y'all. Um, on Instagram, just personally about the podcast and how it's helping you.
So keep sending those messages. And if you don't mind, if you have at least one minute of your time that you could use to support this podcast tangibly, I would appreciate if you could leave me a review. Please leave me a review. Let me know. Are you learning something on this podcast? Are you feeling more inspired?
Do you [00:02:00] feel hope in an area that you typically felt alone in or discouraged in? Leaving me a five star raving review. That is what supports this podcast. Okay? So if you want to keep learning about your vagina, sex, your pelvic floor, that's how you can tangibly support me. Thank you ahead of time for doing that.
So y'all, when you are focusing on healing after a breakup. The number one thing that you need to understand is that your pelvic floor is also going through A rough time in the same way that you are. And the reason why I say your pelvic floor is going through a rough time. If you're struggling through either a struggling and suffering relationship that is almost on the verge of breakup, or you have just been through a breakup or you have just been through a divorce.
Okay. The reason why I say this is because the pelvic floor is an emotional muscle group. And what I mean by that is when we experience anxiety, when we experience hurt or [00:03:00] trauma, whether that's sexual, medical, physical. The pelvic floor becomes guarded, literally, I'm not talking about emotional sense, I'm talking about a physical sense.
The pelvic floor muscles start to contract and hold during the day, even when you are not trying to Kegel or squeeze or anything. The pelvic floor muscles themselves learn to contract, tighten and hold. This is This is dysfunctional for several reasons. One, because when we're not using those muscle groups, they should not be contracted.
So imagine squeezing your fist at all times throughout the day. Imagine making a fist with your hand at all times throughout the day. That's going to create some restrictions in your hand. Your joints are going to stiffen up, your muscles are going to get sore and stiff. There's going to be decreased blood flow and atrophy of the muscles because you're not able to open them and contract them and use those muscle groups, right?
[00:04:00] So the same thing happens with your pelvic floor when you experience stress, anxiety, trauma. So your pelvic floor is grieving with you in a sense, It's becoming more guarded. And naturally when we are hurt, when we go, when we are grieving, grieving the loss of a relationship, grieving the loss of a job, grieving the loss of an identity you thought you once had, grieving the loss of a situation, right?
Or even grieving the loss of an expectation never met. A lot of you are dealing with expectations that have never been met, whether you waited until marriage, you believed in God, you honored God, you honored your morals. You waited all that time for marriage to have sex and you were only met with pain.
You were only met with frustration, feeling disconnected to your partner, frustrated with, with God, wondering why you're experiencing [00:05:00] this when you chose to honor him. And, and you're now married, unable to indulge in that sexual pleasure. So you're grieving the, the loss of an expectation that was never met.
You're grieving that, that you, that you don't get to experience that, right? So there's different ways to grief. And so when we experienced grief and when we experienced trauma, our body learns to close, to restrict. Talk therapy and working with a sex therapist or a psychologist can be very helpful, but I want to make myself very clear.
When we have pelvic floor problems, we need pelvic floor solutions. So in addition to Working through those emotions, talking to a therapist, journaling, having those hard conversations, sitting with the discomfort emotionally. That is well and good and I want you to continue that. However, the misconception that a lot of people have is that, Oh, sexual [00:06:00] trauma contributed to my pelvic floor problems.
Oh, anxiety, uh, contribute to the sexual pain or the vaginismus that I have. I just need to go see a talk therapist. And that's wrong. You need to heal mentally and you need to heal physically. Because if you only focus on healing mentally, your healing is incomplete. Your healing is incomplete. When I say we need to focus on healing the pelvic floor, I'm talking about the physical muscles that you can touch, the physical pain that you are feeling that needs to be worked on.
So as pelvic floor physical therapists, what we do is we assess your physical pelvis. We assess your nerve conduction and your sensation. We look at your pelvic floor muscle strength and your pelvic floor muscle relaxation. We look at if you're having pain, is it on one side? Are you having clitoral pain?
it should not be hurting to get head. All right, if you're getting head and you're like You're, you're making noises because it hurts, not because [00:07:00] it feels so good. Listen, that could be a host of things, but one of the things that could be is pelvic floor muscle dysfunction, right? And so if you are focusing on healing, the pelvic floor is a physical place that needs help.
If a muscle is weak, yes, talking and seeing a therapist can help. But that muscle that is weak needs to be restored if a muscle is too restricted and it's tight It's going to need a physical Stimulus to loosen those physical muscular fibers. So this is what we do as as pelvic floor physical therapists We help you to get your muscles healthy.
We help you to get those muscles contracting well, so it can help support your orgasms so that sex is not hurting you and you're not squirming and you're not gritting your teeth and you're not in pain for two, three days after you have sex. Listen, after you have sex, you shouldn't be in pain. So if the pelvic floor muscles [00:08:00] are tight on entrance, if they're holding pain chemicals, if you're feeling burning, stinging, itching, tearing, stabbing pain with sex on entrance, or with deep penetration, or with just movement.
This is pelvic floor stuff going on, and I'm not discrediting what your mental health could be doing to contribute. But that is a physical problem, so don't let anyone tell you that you're crazy, or that you only need to relax, or that you need to drink a glass of wine. It's not in your head. It is in your pelvis.
The pain is in your pelvis vaginismus. If you can't get that penis in your vagina physical problem, in addition to likely some fear of pain, fear of insertion, fear of anxiety. And so this is how we can start healing the pelvic floor. What we can start doing is taking three to four times a week. To move our pelvis, to move [00:09:00] our hips, and to start relaxing our pelvic floor muscles with breathing, with stretches, with mobility flows that specifically lengthen the pelvic floor.
In my shop, I have a vagina CEO release e guide. It's only 25 bucks and it teaches you those exercises. I remember getting a message from someone last year. She told me that she started using this release e guide, the vagina CEO release e guide only a few times. And she went from not being able to have penetrative sex to having Pain free penetrative sex with this E guy.
So in the E guide, I give you the instructions on like, how do you relax your pelvic floor when you're stretching? How do you do the breathing? I demonstrate the exercises. I have pictures of the movement and the body mechanics and all of that. So this is just a place to start if you don't know where to start and, but you know, your pelvic floor is restricted.
You know that you're, You're hurting, [00:10:00] you're grieving, you're healing from that breakup or from that divorce. And while you're healing emotionally, you also want to start healing physically so that your physical body will be at a place to receive sex and to receive pleasure. Even your vagina, listen, it comes down to this.
Sometimes there is just not enough space in your vagina for you to receive pleasure. Without pain, it's so restricted. It's so tight. It's so close and guarded that something going in and out of there You know in and out in and out in and out that can cause a lot of burning pain Friction all of that so by helping you to move your body in ways that encourage and retrain the pelvic floor muscles That is a great place to start when you're looking to heal.
So that's number one Start moving your body three to four times a week. Just set aside 10 minutes of time. Start there 10 minutes of time to start relaxing those [00:11:00] pelvic floor muscles. Okay. Another thing that you can help do to work on healing your pelvic floor is setting aside time to physically touch your pelvis.
Can you put your hand on your vulva? Can you just put your hand there and embrace the fact that you have body parts That help you to feel pleasure, that help you to connect with someone that you, that you love and someone that you're in a relationship, someone with someone that you want to be intimate with, right?
Can you put your hand over your vulva and just be aware of what your muscles are doing? Sometimes you just need to put your hand on your anus and see like, are you clenching your butthole for no reason? Are you clenching your butt? Some of y'all are clenching your butt when you're standing, you're just squeezing the butt.
You're squeezing your butt for dear life and your pelvic floor is like, Whoa, buddy, can we relax? Can we, can we just not work for a second? We're always working and tightening and squeezing. So by putting your [00:12:00] hand on your vulva or putting your hand on your anus while you're sitting, like sit on your hand, sit on your hand, put it right up underneath your anus.
And you can feel those muscles. You can focus on letting those muscles drop down into your hand just to focus on neuromuscular control and keeping those muscles lengthened, soft, and relaxed. Practicing that that's neuromuscular reeducation, You're using your brain and your nerves to tell your muscles what to do neuromuscular.
And that can be very helpful. You may even want to insert a clean finger with lubricant and check to see, are you holding any tension in here? Just being aware of that. If you're feeling a lot of rigidity, the muscles inside are feeling sort of stiff and rigid. Then, you know, okay, I need to set aside more time to be still to lengthen my body to just get on the floor, get on the floor and lay down just by [00:13:00] being on the floor and stretching out your body.
That's healthier for your pelvic floor than just sitting in a chair. Get on your bed and lengthen out, Get on the floor and lengthen out. That stuff is really going to help you. So physically touch down there to sense what's going on. We want to be more connected. We want to be aware. We don't want to be disconnected from our own body.
And then number three, one of the ways that you can really nurture and support your pelvic floor healing is to tap in to a pelvic floor physical therapist. We do all of our stuff remote. It's accessible for people who are not in, Chicago. It's accessible for people who don't have a pelvic floor physical therapist.
And I gotta say this, sorry, I gotta be honest. It's accessible for those of you who have already been to a pelvic floor therapist and you did not get any better at all. Alright, some of y'all have gone, or you're still going now, you've been going for 8 months and there is no [00:14:00] significant change. And so we do our stuff remote, listen, and it works.
Our average amount of sessions is 9 visits to help our clients overcome painful sex and vaginismus. Okay, so listen, tap into a pelvic floor physical therapist because you are not one, most likely. And so trying to make yourself be that pellet for physical therapist and understand why are you in pain?
What caused it to burn? Why am I peeing my pants today? Do I need to do Kegels or do I need to do stretches? Listen, this is just not your career. It's not your forte. Right? So connect. Tap in, opt in to appellate for a physical therapist. And if you want to work with us, I am doing free calls, literally all of this week, free calls.
If you want to work with us one on one and I am, I am encouraging you and both challenging you to courageously pursue healing one more time. If you know that you can't be accountable to yourself, you just cannot stay consistent with the routine. You're stuck. You're confused. You don't know why you're still not better [00:15:00] and you want to have pain free sex.
Like you want to get laid this summer. You want to go on that vacation with your boo and have good steamy sex and you are nowhere near that right now or it's, or it's excruciating. Come talk to me for free and uh, we have payment plans. Your time zone really doesn't matter at all. cause again, we're remote, so we work with people in Europe and we work with people in Australia, even in Africa.
So it doesn't matter in terms of that. We'll work it out. if you don't want to work with us, you don't pay, but essentially you need to at least take the chance. so y'all invest in your healing time. I'm talking about effort. I'm talking about energy. I'm talking about just the hope. Just being courageous enough to believe that healing is available for you, even if it is a slow journey.
You deserve it. You deserve it. You deserve it. You're a whole, you're not broken. You're not defective, but you do need some support. Okay. You do need some [00:16:00] support. Click the link in the show notes. If you're interested in talking with me one on one or just send me this message on the, on Instagram by July.
That's my, that's my theme. I want to help our one on one client step into more pleasure and pain free sex by July. So if that's you, and you're excited to talk with me for free about how we can potentially help you DM me that on Instagram by July or click the link in the show notes. Y'all thanks for listening to this episode.
We're healing. Even if we're going through a breakup, we're healing. Even if we're going through a divorce, we're healing. And so I'm happy that you stayed and listened to the end. I'll talk to y'all again next Monday. Bye bye.