Yes, we're still here! and still talkin' lady parts!

Hello lovelies! Holy cow, it's June!

I realize that from your point of view it appears that this website has faded into non-existence, but in fact I have been in a 6 month email conversation with another writer across the pond in the UK. We'll be introducing her soon, but in the meanwhile it has been WAY TOO LONG without a post!

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I recently saw an ad in a local magazine that caught my eye:

In case you didn't read all that, there's a woman who makes plaster casts of vulvas, as a tool for personal healing and self expression.

How cool!

It was a great reminder to me that how we view female parts is so closely related to our ability to heal them. If we think we are disgusted by them, or think that they are ugly, why would we set aside time to help them?

Learning to have a loving relationship with our bodies is an important part of cultivating the willingness to heal. If you are fighting for something you love and value, it becomes so much easier to set aside time for it, to stick up for it, to advocate for it.

If you suffer from v-shame - and frankly most women in this country do at some point - let me get up on my soapbox and say that in my experience, it is totally fun and rewarding to overcome it! Some suggestions:

1.) Check out books like Femalia or the wonderfully interactive Cunt Coloring Book. Hey, adult coloring books are all the rage these days ;)

2.) Check out art like The Great Wall of Vagina or performances of the Vagina Monologues.

2.) FIND YOUR POSSE! It helps SOOOO much to have a group of friends who love to talk about the almighty v or at least want to become someone who loves to talk about the almighty v. Fake it 'til you make it and all that.

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Did I and do I still have an awesome v posse? Have they been an amazing help to me? Yes, yes, yes! But that is a story for another post...

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PS In my internet perusals I found another woman making yoni casts. Her website has some good images of the process if you are intrigued. Scroll to the bottom of this link.

This was my subtle hint at yoni casting casting...awesome, no?

This was my subtle hint at yoni casting casting...awesome, no?

euForia?

My sister recently sent me an article about a new product to ease menstrual cramps, a THC and CBD infused vaginal suppository. Yup, THC and CBD as in weed.

I am intrigued.

Apparently the product, Foria Relief, was engineered to provide the cramp relief marijuana can provide without getting the user high. Awesome. I don't always cramp, but when I do they can be vicious and do not respond at all to painkillers, so I am definitely interested.

BUT I am also super curious as to whether Foria Relief could help women with really tight pelvic floor muscles. It is supposed to be inserted as high into the vagina as possible, to be in close proximity to the intended target of the muscles of the uterus. Could it also affect neighboring pelvic floor muscles?  If not, is there another way to engineer or apply the active ingredients so that it could be helpful?

Since Foria's products are marijuana-based, they are currently only available in California and Colorado. If you live there or close by, it might be worth talking to your doctor about it - or writing to Foria to see if they would be willing to collaborate with an OBGYN or PT to make a new product! That's not crazy talk - this product came about because an OBGYN proposed it to the company.

Also worth noting: Foria's first product was a weed-based topical libido enhancer, Foria Pleasure. I think it's really cool that there is something out there other than Flibanserin...you can find out more on the Foria website.

Has anyone used a Foria product? I'd be curious to hear of your experience!

 

 

Write for My V Matters - 'cuz yours does too!

So after a lot of dragging my feet and hemming and hawing, I have finally decided to move on from writing this blog.

What was the clincher? My uterus. I was doing a mind body meditation in which I was chatting with my body and seeing how it was doing and noticed that my uterus was kind of dull and drained. I checked in with it and asked how I could help, and the answer was loud and clear: "Give up the pelvic pain bandwagon for cryin' out loud! You've got one foot in, one foot out, you don't really want to keep doing this, and I am so over it." Since my uterus is the queen of my creativity, I heeded her advice. And immediately felt more energized.

Sometimes no amount of brain thinking gives me the immediate clarity of physical wisdom. 

I have closed my Yoga for Pelvic Pain MeetUp group, and notified another organization that I won't be available to teach for their patients this spring. I withdrew from a pelvic pain workshop.

And it feels GOOD.

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What of this website though? I've worked so hard to make My V Matters matter, isn't that worth something? I don't want it to become one of those sad, abandoned blogs...

One option is to thank it for its service and kill it off, but I wanted to give you, oh wonderful community, a chance to keep it going.

I got this idea from another blog: writer rotation. Rather than remove the blog or leave it as one of those dreadful inactive ghost blogs, I would have another woman take over writing responsibilities for a year. My old posts would stay up, and readers would benefit from another perspective. At the end of Writer #2's year, she could commit to another year or pass the torch.

What is the benefit to you? I learned so much from forcing myself to write consistently on this topic. It encouraged me to be more active in looking for outside resources, and has also been a great tool for self-reflection, confidence-building, and learning to be more loving with myself.

Interested? Here's what I'm looking for in a second writer:

  • Tone: I would like to keep the tone of this blog the same: honest about the challenges v pain presents, while still being hopeful and positive. We want to uplift readers, not bring them down!
  • Content: I have written a lot about spirituality and the emotional side of v pain, but you would be welcome to take it to a more technical or science-y place if that floats your boat! As long as it is about v pain and your experience, that's cool. Also, I have chosen the written word as my primary medium, but you don't have to: you could provide poetry, video, music, visual art, etc.
  • Your writing background: You don't have to have any special degree or background in writing, but it would be great if you enjoy writing and can write clearly, without spelling mistakes or grammatical errors (unless done on purpose for creative expression of course!) 
  • Images: *Any and all images would of course have to be legally obtained,* ie your own or used with permission (no copying and pasting stuff off the web.) I learned how to use Canva (the free version) to create images for each post. You could use Canva as well, or provide your own imagery: drawings, photos, whatever.  If you are really opposed to images, it's not a deal breaker - maybe we can redesign to site to make it look good without an image for each post.
  • Frequency: I currently write once a week and post on Wednesdays. You do not have to keep the same schedule, but I would like you to commit to completing at least 12 posts (ie one a month), preferably on a consistent schedule of your choosing. Of course, this is a hobby and not a job, so you might not hit that target, but I would like you to at least be aiming for one. (I don't want someone to pump out 15 posts in a week and then do nothing for the rest of the year.) Part of what creates community, and the personal growth benefits of writing, is consistency and showing up. :)
  • Money honey! I pay an annual fee to Squarespace for hosting the blog and the use of their tools. If I am to pass the reins onto another writer, I do not want to keep paying this fee. If you are willing to take on that cost yourself, awesome, but if you are not able to than perhaps we can set up a donate button or pass the hat somehow? You don't have to be able to front the money yourself, but I would require a willingness to help me problem-solve that issue.
  • General Awesomeness: Since you and I would be working together to make this happen, it would be cool if you are generally awesome: respectful, responsible, creative, someone who would be great to work with on our little two-person team, but also someone independent and committed enough so that I can step back knowing that the website is in good hands.

 

If you want to write for My V Matters for a year, please let me know by February 1st, 2016, and write a sample post and a paragraph about why you'd like the gig by February 15th, 2016. (That will give you enough time to write a post, but if no one is interested I'd rather know sooner rather than later.) Start time is negotiable, but I am thinking that you would be taking over by March 1st. You can get in touch through the contact page.  

Til then, to a happy pelvis!

 

 

2016 Patient Conference

Here I am, back from my break and armed with oodles of clarity for the coming year!

JUST KIDDING.

Turns out December is a terrible month to take a break from blogging if the goal is clarity of purpose.

I was so distracted by the holidays and its inevitable disruption to routine that I didn't get as much of a sense of how the absence of writing and teaching about v pain affected my life. 

As such I am still feeling it out, trying to figure out what my options are and where to head next.

IN THE MEANWHILE,

the Alliance for Pelvic Pain is having their second patient retreat May 20-22 and discounted early bird registration ends February 1st!

This event is unique in that it is an educational conference for patients, not doctors. If you are interested, you can learn more on their website here.

I hope your holidays were wonderful and you are excited about starting this beautiful new year.

Happy 2016 everybody!

Doing Nothing but Not for No Reason

 

In July I took a restorative yoga teacher training with Judith Hanson Lasater. Restorative yoga is officially the "practice of using props to position the body to promote health and wellness," but I think of it as yoga to regulate the nervous system, and what it looks like is people lying still on pillows, blankets, and other "props" for 20 minutes or so at a time. 

Currently in the US, many people think "yoga" means an exercise class, but restorative yoga is not exercise at all.

It is wakeful rest. It is the art of doing nothing.

Turns out that doing nothing, while in a specific position, is doing something. Depending on how you position the body, you can help support its healing process. One pose can ease your back pain, another your swollen and tired legs, another your digestion. Poses can also be indicated for emotional support such as in times of grief. By resting in stillness, awake and with eyes closed, we can activate our "rest and digest" function (the parasympathetic nervous system, or PNS) the part of our nervous system that is in charge of all forms of maintenance, repair, and healing in our body.

The sympathetic nervous system (SNS), on the other hand - also referred to as our "get up and go" or "fight, flight, or freeze" response - is in charge of our survival and activity. It gets us up and out of bed, keeps us active during the day, and is in charge of the reflexes that keep us alive when we are almost hit by a car or mugged.

The thing is, we can't use both parts of the nervous system at once - it is one or the other. Either we are resting and digesting, or getting up and going. And the thing is, even when we think we are "relaxing," or taking a break, we are often still using our SNS: watching a scary movie, riding a rollercoaster, or exercising might be a fun break from your day job, but from the perspective of your SNS it is not a break at all! So if when we are "taking a break" our SNS doesn't get a break too, how are our bodies ever supposed to go into PNS and do the repair and maintenance work we need to thrive?

Given this knowledge of how our nervous system works, is it any surprise that in our "work hard, play hard" and "go, go, go" culture, more and more people are suffering from chronic illnesses?

I was already aware of the physical benefits of restorative yoga, and it is those physical benefits that drew me to the training. I wanted to learn more to help both myself and others. But what really struck me during the week-long training was not the physical benefits of the practice, but the importance of its spiritual lesson:

Doing nothing teaches us that we are enough.

So often we get tangled up in the belief that our worth is a direct result of our productivity. We feel good when we are productive, frustrated and disappointed with ourselves if we are not. If we are busy, we assume that means our life has meaning. Not busy? Then something is wrong - you must be lazy, unintelligent, not care about yourself or the group, or somehow be "broken or "less than."

It seems like lying around doing nothing would be an easy practice to teach people, and yet as I have started to practice restorative more and teach it to others, I am finding that's not the case.

In my effort to practice one pose a day, I come up against all kinds of emotional resistance: "But I have plenty of energy today!" or "I'm fine!" or (lately, in the past few weeks) "No, I'm too angry to be still!" I seem to think I need a reason to rest, or to meet specific criteria to do so. And yet I don't need a reason or to meet specific criteria to floss, shower, or exercise - I just do it as part of my daily maintenance, no questions asked. 

It fascinates me that the idea of rest as a daily health habit is completely foreign to me and others in my culture. Really? Why does a habit of rest seem so weird?

In teaching this practice to others, I got a rainbow of reactions.

I thought restorative would be a good introduction for people who have never practiced yoga before, and yet so far I am finding that newbies are among the worst responders. They like it when I set them up in a pose, but aren't willing to do the work themselves on their own. They aren't in touch with their bodies and so it's harder for them to feel the results and therefore, understandably, stay motivated.

The students I have taught who are accustomed to being with their bodies - so far these folks have been experienced yoga practitioners and/or meditators - they can see the value in restorative yoga, and will overcome the frustrations of learning something new in order to get themselves in the habit of practicing on their own.

It's also the second group that is more receptive to the spiritual lesson of being enough. As a group, they seem to be more aware of the pain the belief "I'm not enough" causes.

I initially took the teacher training for my own benefit and to pass on to others in my Yoga for V Pain classes, but I have become more interested in it than I expected. Seemingly simple, restorative yoga is a complex creature that reaches much more deeply than I realized, asking larger questions than I thought it would. I am looking forward to continuing to grapple with this, both in my own practice and in my teaching...we'll see what unfolds...

Interested in taking a restorative yoga class? Find a certified teacher at www.RelaxandRenew.com, and note: "restorative yoga" is not a trademarked name, so although it most frequently refers to Judith Hanson Lasater's work, sometimes people use that term to mean something else. Relax and Renew© is, however, a copyrighted term, so if a person is Relax and Renew© certified you know what you are getting into. :) Just a tip, I found out the hard way...

Next week I'll be sharing more photographs and talking about the effect photographing people at rest had on me. See you next week!

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PS Did this post get your brain gears crankin'?

Feel free to start a conversation below (it's okay, you can be anonymous)!