In my line of work, the topic of healing comes up a lot.
Women wanting to heal from birth, pelvic pain, incontinence, abdominal surgery, or trauma come together in my classes with a common goal - to get better.
But what does that really mean - how can yoga or any other kind of fitness really help “heal” your pelvic floor?
My perspective on this has changed a lot the longer I’ve done this work. When I first began, armed with my knowledge of anatomy and physiology and functional movement, I was convinced that the things that were bringing these women to my class were, largely, something that we could fix.
I knew it might take a long time, and that they would likely also need help from other professionals to get there.
In my determination to help make a difference in these women's lives, I was convinced that a “cure” was out there.
But the more I dove into the actual work, meeting day in and day out with clients and teaching classes, that I realized the truth - sometimes a “cure” is really and truly out of reach.
I struggled with this a lot, continuing to seek out more training and advice from other professionals to try to better serve my clients, trying to put an end to their distress.
It wasn’t until I heard some advice from one of my yoga teachers during a training in Restorative Yoga that I truly understood what I (and my students) had been missing…and that is the difference between healing and curing.
As shared by my teacher Keely Garfield, the word “cure” stems from a Latin word for fixing something that is broken. The word "heal" comes from old English and implied a sense of wholeness.
What does this mean for us?
Viewing your body or mind as something that’s broken and in need of fixing has some pretty serious repercussions. It sets our expectations on a singular end goal - complete absence of whatever is distressing us, a return to the way things were before we “broke.”
Sometimes, this just isn’t possible - in fact in many ways I’d argue that even if you achieve a complete relief from whatever it is you’re dealing with, it’s impossible to return to who you were before it impacted you. By working through that challenge, you are changed and affected in ways that will impact how you live your life.
But beyond that, training ourselves to see ourselves as broken erodes our trust in our bodies and ourselves. It traps us in a mentality where we view ourselves as working against our bodies, as victims trying our hardest to fight against this physical condition.
That feeling is real, and common - but it’s not a great place to live for a long period of time, especially if it turns out that whatever ails you isn’t as “fixable” as you hoped.
Yoga may not magically disappear the issues you’re experiencing - but what it can do is help you to change your mindset and begin to seek healing instead of a cure.
Bear with me.
When you practice yoga, bringing harmony to mind, body, and spirit, you begin to integrate these parts of yourself - in other words, you begin to reconnect with that feeling of wholeness.
Learning to understand and listen to your body, to control your mind and nurture your heart, and to practice loving compassion with yourself is invaluable because it rebuilds trust.
When you feel more in harmony with your body, when you feel you have control, and when you develop comfort with the concept of surrender - you will find your experience of physical and emotional pain transforms.
Essentially, you are better able to cope with whatever is thrown at you - whether or not you ever find a “cure.”
Incorporating this concept into my work here at MomBod has made a difference for so many of the women who have come seeking something better - it’s the thing that takes our classes from being just fitness classes to actually offering holistic healing and metamorphosis.
So yes, we work towards easing physical symptoms - and if we can get them to go away then that’s incredible! Every time someone comes to me telling me they were able to go a whole day without peeing their pants, or have sex without pain, I do a little happy dance inside.
But through and above it all, the part where the real life-changing stuff happens, is when we develop tools that help us feel whole again no matter what - because that is where true healing begins.
This might mean learning breathing techniques to manage pain and stress. It might mean guided meditation to reconnect with parts of your body you’ve dissociated from. It might mean holding a challenging pose for a few breaths longer than is comfortable, focusing on finding ease in discomfort. Or it might simply be the act of linking breath, movement, and attention to help ground you in your body and the present moment.
If you’re ready to experience what it’s like to trust your body and feel better in your daily life, and especially if you’ve been bouncing around and around trying to find that magic pill that will finally get rid of your pelvic struggles…I hope you’ll reach out or join one of our group classes.
True healing awaits, my friends...and however you choose to pursue it, remember that nothing about you is broken - you are whole and complete just as you are in this moment. That matters.
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