I yearned for freedom from pain. I’d been struggling with chronic pelvic pain for over 20 years when I found Abigail in 2008. A woman I met at a pelvic pain treatment clinic emailed. She asked if that was me who commented on Abigail’s blog, The Vagina Dialogues. Abigail, who had healed herself from IC and vulvodynia, intrigued me. How did she do it? And what was life coaching?

In 1980, when I first had symptoms of chronic pelvic pain, it was the dark days of pelvic pain treatment. I just transferred to a university away from home for the first time. Vaginal soreness and chronic yeast infections started with a sexual relationship with a new man before I broke up with my long-time boyfriend. A few years later abdominal pain and irritable bladder symptoms joined in. Other symptoms included painful periods, anxiety, constipation, intestinal gas, food sensitivities, and pregnancy complications.

Healing Breakthroughs

In 2009 Abigail gave a free first session for The Healthy Mind Toolbox telecourse. I ended up taking the full course (now renamed Mind-Body Toolbox for Pain Relief). I devoured the class. It made so much sense to me! I listened to the class recordings over and over and practiced the tools diligently. My sense of emotional relief and curiosity were incentives to learn more. Abigail inspired me to take a deep dive into mind-body practice. If she could find relief, then so could I.

Getting the right kind of physical therapy for pelvic pain in 2008 started me on my healing breakthrough. Taking Abigail’s telecourse and then getting coached by her regularly for the next year gave me my love of life back. My progress for freedom from pain was slow-going but consistent over time. I stayed inspired and committed to mind-body practice for pain relief. It’s made all the difference.

Persistence

Persistence with mind-body connection practice was my key for healing success. I became a devoted mind-body nerd by following in Abigail footsteps. In 2010 I trained as a Martha Beck Life Coach and the next year I trained with Abigail in Mind-Body Coach Training. Now I know and understand my mind-body-emotion-spirit connection so well. I have so many tools to keep coming back to wellness and comfort when I periodically experience discomfort, get stuck, or triggered.

Freedom

Mind-body connection becomes a spiritual journey. Once you become conscious to mind-body connection you can’t get away with being unconscious again. There will be unconscious triggers that take you back to old way of beings, often with physical or emotional pain patterns. These are just signs that something needs attention. Doing mind-body-emotion-spirit inquiry on a regular basis will help you keep coming back to center and well-being. When in doubt, keep going. Follow the sense of emotional or spiritual relief or the sense of curiosity to know more. Physical and emotional relief, and freedom from pain will soon follow.

P.S. Is it your turn to take Mind-Body Coach Training and learn all the mind-body tools for pain and stress relief? (You don’t have to become a coach; the training is also available for personal use only!) We’re enrolling for the Mind-Body Coach Training 2017 right now, and the first 10 applicants get a $500 discount! (Hurry – there’s only a few discount spots left!) To learn more and apply, click here!

Endorsed Coach – Gail Kenny

When I found Abigail I had been struggling with chronic pelvic pain (including pain in my lower abdomen, IC symptoms, yeast infections and myofascial pain) for over 20 years. Mind-body coaching was the last thing I needed to truly get my life back. I know first-hand the challenges of healing chronic pelvic pain and I’m well prepared to help you with your healing. I’m also a certified Martha Beck life coach and trained psychic.

I work with people in physical pain who have already tried all the normal solutions. I help them heal old dysfunctional habits of thinking and feeling. I teach them to relate to their body, emotions, mind, and soul in new ways, creating relief from underlying tension, healing pain from the inside out and getting back to living the life they want. Start with your free pain relief practice here.

It was the late 1980s, I was 28 years old, and I already had an eight year history with chronic pelvic pain.  My symptoms included persistent pain in my lower right abdomen, chronic vaginal soreness, and urinary urgency.  I was seeing an MD who was a specialist in Candidiasis.  She had been treating me for over a year with the drugs Nystatin, Tylenol and Codeine, and a diet.  I wasn’t getting any better.  I had been treated for endometriosis several years prior and I thought the pain was coming from my right ovary.  The pain got worse when I was on my period or ovulating.

One day I asked my doctor if I could have my right ovary removed in order to stop the pain.  Her response was to refer me to a homeopathic physician and to a healer.   The homeopath gave me some weird treatments like drinking vinegar.  The healer waved his hands over me and told me my pain had to do with my gallbladder.  Neither treatment made me feel any better.  But later I learned that some of my indigestion symptoms were from low stomach acid, and that’s cured now, so there was some truth to what the healer said.

What I know now is that my pain was caused by unconscious habits of resisting feeling emotions which put my body into the fight or flight response and tensed my muscles.  This chronically overloaded my adrenals causing fatigue and cascading into an imbalance of sex hormones causing vaginal irritation.  Chronic muscle tension results in myofasical pain in the pelvic area, disrupted digestion, pain in the bladder area and soreness in the vaginal area.  The pain I thought was in my ovary was actually from a tight spots in the psoas muscle in my hip.

I am so thankful that my MD did not agree to remove my ovary.  I’m relieved that I finally found the explanation and effective treatment for all my symptoms.  Applying mind-body healing has done much to relieve the underlying cause of tension in my muscles.   When I do experience myofascial pain, I know how to massage my own trigger points in my muscles to help them release.  Daily yoga keeps my muscles limber.  Self-coaching, including calming my mind, feeling my emotions, and tapping into my inner wisdom all contribute to my healing and well-being.

Endorsed Coach – Gail Kenny

When I found Abigail I had been struggling with chronic pelvic pain (including pain in my lower abdomen, IC symptoms, yeast infections and myofascial pain) for over 20 years. Mind-body coaching was the last thing I needed to truly get my life back. I know first-hand the challenges of healing chronic pelvic pain and I’m well prepared to help you with your healing. I’m also a certified Martha Beck life coach and trained psychic.

I work with people in physical pain who have already tried all the normal solutions. I help them heal old dysfunctional habits of thinking and feeling. I teach them to relate to their body, emotions, mind, and soul in new ways, creating relief from underlying tension, healing pain from the inside out and getting back to living the life they want. Start with your free pain relief practice here.

Photo Credit:  freedigitalphotos.net

Remembering and practicing mind-body healing basics when chronic pelvic pain or other mind-body syndrome symptoms ramp up is what will get you the quickest relief from distressing symptoms. There are so many approaches to mind-body healing but they’re all likely to include the following four steps:

1. Awareness
2. Acceptance
3. Feeling
4. Take inspired action from your true and wise self.

Awareness

The first and most crucial step in mind-body healing basics is to be aware of what and how you are experiencing life. This is how you can get familiar with your habitual patterns, some of which could be contributing to your discomfort. This includes how your mind is acting, what you’re feeling physically and emotionally and how connected you are to your true and wise self. Discomfort will often distance you from your true and wise self. The way back to that empowered perspective is the first three steps of mind-body basics, which many of us unconsciously avoid. Once you have awareness of how you are actually experiencing your life, it helps you to be less identified with that way of being, helps you to understand your own patterns, and gives you the space and opportunity to change how you show up in your life so it’s more satisfying.

Acceptance

The second step is accepting what you’re already experiencing. This helps to let go of resistance to what is already present for you. Resistance to your experience can cause added stress that tends to make discomfort feel even more uncomfortable and can feed into additional layers of anxiety and/or depression. When you can accept or allow what you are already experiencing, it allows you to receive the messages from your mind, body, emotions, and spirit rather than trying to get rid of, get away from, or kill the messengers. Yes, the messages can be so uncomfortable, but when you can practice being more present in your body in present time and learn that it’s only discomfort and you won’t die if you feel it, that you can actually find relief on the other side, your habitual responses to avoid it will begin to shift and you’ll find your way back to peace more quickly.

Feeling

The third step is to turn towards and feel what you are feeling. Acceptance starts the process. Learning to stay with, hold space for, not resist, let go of controlling, trusting the process, finding a place of “okayness” in the midst of discomfort will let you experience what’s already present for you. When you experience discomfort by resisting it or reacting to it, it can trigger you to respond from a part of you, an unconscious habit or response rather from your true and wise self. Taking the time to focus your awareness on what you’re actually feeling helps you to get the messages your being is trying to convey. When you take the time to be and feel you will more easily access and receive the messages. Then the messenger, which is contained in the discomfort, can subside, relieving stress and allowing your nervous system to come back to ease.

Take Inspired Action

The fourth step is to reconnect with your true self, your adult self, the wise and skilled person you are today and then take action from that perspective rather than from a part of your triggered self who is just reacting. When we take action from the reactive self we are disconnected from the true self (higher self, wise self, soul, spirit) and responding from reactive, protective, survival habits that were learned and programmed into the brain during difficult times of the past, especially in childhood, when we didn’t have the benefit of the wisdom that comes with life experience and a mature nervous system. Once the distress of the mind activity, physical or emotional discomfort has peaked and begun releasing and symptoms improve, it’s easier to connect with and take inspired action from your fully connected true and wise self.

Photo Credit: Stuart Miles freedigitalphotos.net

Endorsed Coach – Gail Kenny

When I found Abigail I had been struggling with chronic pelvic pain (including pain in my lower abdomen, IC symptoms, yeast infections and myofascial pain) for over 20 years. Mind-body coaching was the last thing I needed to truly get my life back. I know first-hand the challenges of healing chronic pelvic pain and I’m well prepared to help you with your healing. I’m also a certified Martha Beck life coach and trained psychic.

I work with people in physical pain who have already tried all the normal solutions. I help them heal old dysfunctional habits of thinking and feeling. I teach them to relate to their body, emotions, mind, and soul in new ways, creating relief from underlying tension, healing pain from the inside out and getting back to living the life they want. Start with your free pain relief practice here.