When you read the title of this blog, what came up? Fear? Avoidance? Did you take a second to think about what it meant, or did you keep reading in hopes that I’m going to tell you how to do it? I wish, more than anything most days, that I could snap my fingers and create a loving and healing environment within each of the clients I have the privilege of working with. And I wish I could do the same for anyone reading this blog. Truth is, I can’t. Someone once said, “a healer is someone who holds space for you to heal yourself; a healer cannot heal you”. So that’s what I’m here to do, I’m going to hold space, and guide you through creating a more healing and loving environment within yourself.
When we go through a trauma, whether that trauma is emotional, physical, spiritual, or a combination of the three, the single most important thing we can do for ourselves is to acknowledge it. When I say acknowledge, I don’t mean saying “oh, this terrible thing happened, and it sucked but I’m strong and I’ll get over it”. We must be willing to go deeper than the superficial, to sit with the feelings it brings up. We must feel what it does to our body. If we suppress our feelings of disappointment, anger, confusion about why it happened, embarrassment, fear, etc. it will return later with much more intensity.
When our body processes trauma, of any kind, it becomes stored in our fascial system. And it is when we don’t acknowledge the trauma that it gets stuck there. Our memory, our conscious and our emotions are all stored within the fascial system. Think of your fascial system as a webby matrix that surrounds every fiber in your body. Without the fascial system, our skeleton would not be able to be held up by just our muscles and ligaments as the fascia is the connective tissue binding it all together. Our fascial system should move freely. When there is a restriction, it mimics the inability of plastic wrap to slide after its been folded over itself.
The restriction is the trauma that hasn’t been released. In order to foster an environment that supports healing, the trauma needs to be released. It is through the release that we can return to the wisdom held in the female body. Freedom for the feminine wisdom to flow easily throughout our body is what provides the ultimate healing environment.
I’m going to walk you through an exercise that helps to return you to freedom. This can be done multiple times a day if you want. My hope is that this becomes part of your self-care routine, whatever that looks like to you. To start, sit (or lay) in a quiet space, preferably away from any bright light (unless it is sunlight) with eyes closed. Place your hands over your womb: the space just below the naval to the pubic bone. Imagine warmth traveling from your hands into your body; feel your hands and lower abdomen start to feel warm to the touch. Your breathing should be slow and purposeful; each breath should fill up the lower abdomen. As you rest your hands here, notice if anything comes up. If your thoughts drift off, it’s okay, just bring your awareness back to the placement of your hands. Sometimes it’s even helpful to picture light shining from underneath your hands. Allow yourself to cry if needed, allow yourself to laugh, to scream, to smile; just notice what comes up. You don’t have to have all the answers about what’s popping in your head, just notice it. Towards the end of the session (with maybe a minute or so left), think of one word to support your journey and repeat the word a few times as you again feel the warmth build between your hands and your lower abdomen. Here are some of my favorite words in case you aren’t sure where to start: beautiful, safe, empowered, powerful, seen, appreciated, love, strong, enough. This exercise can last as long as you need, but a good starting place is 5 minutes.
The purpose of this specific exercise is to initiate a relationship with yourself from your center and to break up any restrictions caused by trauma being stored in the body. It may feel awkward at first, but I promise it gets easier. And once you have this relationship, then you’re able to allow this freedom to spread throughout the rest of your body. The more freedom that’s present, the more movement there will be through the fascial system and the more healing can take place. It’s a beautiful thing to get to know yourself from your deepest center. And what comes from a woman who knows herself, and her body, is magic.
I am a firm believer in our innate body wisdom, especially as a female. And I know from the experience of treating my clients that the more they know themselves, and the more they facilitate this relationship, the more peace they carry within themselves. Our world is full of distractions and reasons to ignore our truest self, but I’m hopeful we will all return to knowing ourselves.
Ashley
Ashley Zimmerman, PT, DPT, NCPT is a pelvic health physical therapist, certified Pilates instructor, full spectrum doula and a Birthfit Professional. Her approach to treating women is to address the person as a whole. She believes that you must look past the current physical presentation in order to find the true root cause of the dysfunction. She believes in facilitating the relationship with your innate body wisdom in order to completely heal.
Ashley is one of our amazing Malas for Tatas Preferred Providers!
Learn more:
(720) 593-0489
https://yourstrengthwithin.com/
