Physical therapy uses modification of behavior, movement, posture, and various modalities to improve functionality and reduce pain. Pelvic “Floor” Physical Therapy specifically address conditions and compaints unique to the pelvis including bladder, bowels, vulvovaginal, menstrual, pregnancy-related, post-partum- related, orthopedic, sport, and sex-related.

Somatic experiential therapy is a body-based therapeutic approach that uses the wisdom of our nervous systems to restore the body and support our capacity for negotiating stress through connection. Somatics is a practice based on an Indigenous teachings including slowing down and reconnecting to the land and each other

Somatic Root Therapy takes this practice and combines it with pelvic- focused interventions to support the restoration of our Root.

Eastern teachings around the Root, describe this part of our body as the foundation of safety and security in the Self. It is said to be first to develop in infants.

Often shame, disgust, and fear can shape the relational availability of the pelvis. This separation of our pelvis from our body is normalized in Western philosophy. For example, Physical Therapists don’t learn about the pelvis unless they chose to pursue additional (expensive) coursework following our degree.

Somatic Root Therapy acknowledges that Western/colonial societal separation of the pelvis and how that separation has been used to profit some and deeply harm, dominate and control the many.

Through reconnecting to the pelvis, we are able to negotiate our environment with intention of seeking reparative experiences of relative safety, security, and radical self-love.

Trauma is what happened to us, that shouldn’t have, and also what should have happened to us that didn’t. When we are left alone in these experiences, we often take in wounded messaging as Truth. The wounding often has roots in our inherent enough-ness. As Gabor Maté explains, “Trauma is what happens inside of you, because of what happened to you.”

Trauma has many origins such as:
— Medical Trauma

— Developmental/ Childhood Trauma

— Migration Trauma

— Colonization Trauma

— Historical/ Inherited/ Intergenerational Trauma

— Reproductive/ Birth Trauma

— War/ Genocidal Trauma

— Natural Disaster Trauma

— Impact/Compact Trauma

— Racial Trauma

— Trauma around our various marginalized identities

This is relational work. Your Pelvis is after all, just part of the whole You.

You were hurt in relationship, so it is in relationship that healing can deepen.

Our Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is responsible for responding to threat. It decides whether the environment is safe for connection or if we are in danger and needing to respond accordingly. There are a couple of ways our ANS can change our body to respond to a real or perceived threat including Fight, Flight, Freeze, Appeasement, Fawn, Fragment, De-Personalize, Dissociate, or Shut Down.

To move through these survival responses, our ANS is capable of altering our heart rate, muscle tension, digestion, vision, moistness/sweat, hearing, pain perception, and even our bladder and bowel functioning.

Sometimes, in the case of trauma, our ANS doesn’t know that the threat has passed, or that it is presently not attacking the body. So the body can remain in various stress responses and relaxing, digesting, sleeping, healing might be less accessible.

It’s important to note that we have a cranial nerve, called the Vagus nerve, that directly connects the brain to the feelings of the heart, gut, and pelvis.

It is through this incredible system, ANS, that we are able to move energy through the body to promote more experiences of releasing/completing stress responses to that we can rest, recover, connect with Self and others, heal, and sleep.

The individual reclamation of Self is interwoven through exploration of the Familiar (intergenerational), Collective (Political), and Ancestral (Historical/Land). In other words, Self-sovereignty is your birth-rite, but through colonial domination of others, separation of People from Land, and exploitation of resources. Patriarchy, White-Body hierarchy (supremacy is mythical), Ableism, and other society protected hierarchies disenfranchise, dehumanize, and depersonalize our sacred connection to Self, Community and Land. Grief and Rage are natural responses to these violations.

That’s why it is so incredibly powerful to feel. We are highly sensitive beings, thanks to our wise ANS. Trusting our feelings and sensations is an embodied practice that guides us towards connection, and gives us the ability to alchemize our wounds in a way that brings us back to our bodies, each other and the Land.

Here are some conditions that often bring people to my office:

— Accidental Bowel/Bladder Leakage (Urinary, Fecal, Gas Incontinence)

— Urinary Frequency/Urgency

— Rectal/Anal Pain

— Rectal Dysfunction (often associated with Irritable Bowel Syndrome Constipation/Diarrhea)

— Pain with Vaginal/Rectal Penetration (Vaginismus, Vulvodynia, Dyspareunia)

— Pain with Sitting (including but not limited to Pudendal Neuralgia)

— Pelvic “Floor” Diaphragm Training

— Painful Tailbone (Coccydynia)

— Painful Bladder Syndrome/ Interstitial Cystitis

— Pelvic Organ Prolapse

— Perineal Rehabilitation (birth-related injuries including tearing, episiotomy, forceps, vacuum)

— Cesarean Scar Rehabilitation

— Diastatsis Recti (Abdominal Muscle Separation/Lower Belly Bulge)

— Fertility Support

— Menopausal Support

— Menstrual Pain (Painful periods/ Dysmenorrhea/ Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome/ Endometriosis/ Adenomyosis)

— Clogged Milk Ducts

— Postural Pain (Baby wearing, Parenting-related tasks)

Here’s what often comes with these symptoms:

— Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

— Depression

— Anxiety

— Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

— Developmental Trauma

— Attachment Wounding