dedicated to curiosity…1-17-17

I have books on my shelf with titles like Pelvic Power that have been there since the nineties. Because the eighties core stability craze focused on creating a corset around the lower body and neglected to include the pelvic bowl floor. Woops. So my interest in this multi-faceted topic goes back aways.   Teaching patients to coordinate deep abs with pelvic floor was a clinical treatment goal back then.

In 2006 I dove head first into kundalini yoga for a year and a half and muhla bhanda, root lock was basic…same concept with an energetic function to boot, moving prana, life force, up the central channel in a journey to divine connection. This energetic function was always present of course, but largely unnamed. Some yoga practitioners believe it takes about a decade of regular practice to come into full relationship with this energetic awareness and physical action. I’ve been on it longer than that and it continues to unfold.

Regular readers know that more than two years ago I entered a new chapter, learned that at the bottom of the bowl lay a piece of my scoliosis puzzle. And that I went to Portland to learn physical therapy and energetic techniques to treat the pelvic floor. When I returned I put the word out via this newsletter. An invitation to explore and treat women with pelvic floor issues like continence, pain, prolapse AND hip or low back pain that might have a pelvic floor component. Since September I have worked with 12 of you. I am humbled by your trust, honored to be a witness to your tender process, grateful to have some developing skills to co-create healing with you.

I returned from Portland as the recipient of an extremely thorough and very sterile clinical education in “just the facts ma’am.” I knew what I was getting in to. And I also had time with an alternative practitioner who was incredible and, yet also, not how I felt it was right for me to be with someone. So when I came home and literally dived in, it surprised me that it was only a little strange. There I was palpating tissue—tender, responsive, alive—I had just never been with that particular tissue as yet. We were getting acquainted and yet the basic feel and qualities were predictably familiar.

All my unconscious competence was brought to bear without hesitation. It actually felt pretty obvious what was called for with each person. There are occasional mysteries, but our muscle, fascia, joint problems are mostly pretty routine. That being said, this new arena is fresh and challenging and I welcome more hands on experience, excited about how maturing skill shapes the horizon of what is possible. It has compelled me to reflect on what it means to be a professional. How it goes hand in hand with dedication to curiosity.

So naturally all this is shaping what I want to teach on February 11 in Pelvic Bowl: a workshop for women. Lately my spirit of inquiry has been captivated with reading about this region’s special function to generate pleasure. This is ripe and edgy information and I am just now considering how to weave in this integral piece. As we explore the physical channel, learning anatomy, feeling breath, bones, muscles, sphincters, we can allow and track what this energetically evokes. Count on time for exploratory writing of those heartfelt, soulful places.

I love this work and the workshop format really calls me. So much coming up ! I hope you can join me.

Love, bella