How is your vagina today?

Girls and women in particular are raised to say Yes to health professionals. Yes, you can take my temperature and look under my tongue. Yes, you can see my genitals. Yes, you can put your finger or speculum inside me. Yes, you can use the forceps. Yes, you can tell me all about how I'm doing periods, breastfeeding, parenting, eating, and sex ALL WRONG... Yes, you can do something to my body without really taking the time to explain it, to offer me all the options, to ensure I am totally okay with it.

Starting to feel a bit uncomfortable? I know I am - and I sometimes provide up to 10 different women with internal pelvic floor assessments in one day! Actually - that's exactly why I'm so acutely aware of how private and sacred each of our bodies really is. And how our experiences as female-bodied people can erode our connection to this sacredness, privateness, and the sovereignty we all have over our bodies from birth.

So what can we do? How can we start to heal previous traumas and set clear, healthy and embodied boundaries?

For a start, I use Embodied Consent in my practice. You and me ask your vagina how she feels about an internal examination, to check the muscles and fascia, organ position and other key indicators of your pelvic health and what will be effective in your integrative physiotherapy plan.

And this is not just window dressing: You will find a record of what comes up, what you discover and share with me, in my clinical notes (a.k.a. my written record of your visit). I take this stuff as seriously as what I notice about your posture or core muscle activation pattern.

Vagina talks can be tricky when you two have been ‘offline’ for a while - or maybe a really, really long time. So we work on this, alongside the physical elements of your care. Because how well you can notice, listen and yes even communicate with your vagina and ‘pelvic bowl’ (everything inside your pelvic bones) really impacts how rapidly and effectively you process whatever is needed and move towards your next state of being!

And if all of that sounds ridiculous to you - I’m probably not the right pelvic floor physio for you… But you know what? I actually believe that anyone, even really skeptical and ‘anti-woo-woo’ people, can benefit deeply from speaking and listening compassionately with their body. When we start to behave ‘as if’ the body can really hear you (and obviously, I reckon she really can!), we get clearer instructions about what is needed for our optional health and flourishing.

So if this ‘vagina talk’ is ‘weird’ or uncomfortable for you right now, why not just fake it ‘til you make it? Treat your body like the sacred, wise, and intelligent phenomenon that I already know her to be.