The other day, I met a woman who suffered, like me, from vulvodynia. She had read my blog and ended up working with one of my Endorsed Mind-Body Coaches. She was immensely grateful for the mind-body healing tools, because she’s now pain-free and living a normal life again.

As we talked, she expressed all the feelings she’d felt along the way. She shared the thoughts she’d had about herself and her body, and tears came to both our eyes. I could remember clearly the same exact feelings and thoughts during my years of struggle with a multitude of pelvic diagnoses.

I remember feeling alone, embarrassed, ashamed, and like a complete outsider. None of my friends understood what it was like to deal with such a private, all-encompassing pain. There was no one to talk to, and no one to offer hope. Vulvodynia wasn’t something I’d ever heard of, until I was diagnosed with it, and the same went for interstitial cystitis, vulvar vestibulitis, pelvic floor dysfunction, and vulvar dysesthesia.

I remember spiraling down into shame, because somehow I thought having something “wrong” with me in those very personal, private places was shameful. I believed something was really wrong with me as a person, at my core. I felt lost, alone, and, of course, terrified. I felt completely isolated.

I wanted to know that I wasn’t alone, there were others who experienced what I was experiencing, and I was not a lost cause. I was terribly confused, because I couldn’t understand why there was no help; no clear path to follow to wellness.

It’s a strange thing, having pain and other symptoms that are too private to share. I couldn’t talk much with anyone, because one doesn’t go about sharing about one’s nether regions. It wasn’t like back pain, where it’s socially acceptable to say something like, “I need to stand up for a minute, I have some back pain.”

Instead, it felt cloaked, hidden, and dark. My mind could hardly stand this aspect of the pain. It wanted freedom to express and share. It wanted it to be ok to talk about vaginal pain, out loud. It wanted a space in which to admit what was really going on with me, and to find compassionate listeners who knew the hell I was walking through.

We all walk our own paths through hell at different times and in different ways. This is the compelling aspect of a support group, because hell can be isolating.

I know the hell of having various pelvic symptoms that make it painful to do the simplest of things – like wear underwear. I know the hell of endless appointments involving people who can’t really solve the pain, and who don’t really want to talk about the emotional side of the syndrome/s. I know the hell of wanting a way out of the painful, symptomatic body, and the darkness of the mental pain that accompanies this experience.

Sometimes I feel like there is a very small club of people who have both A) been through pelvic pain and B) who have embarked on the mind-body healing journey like myself. Not only did I feel alone when I was facing vulvodynia, but I felt alone when I embarked on a completely radical healing path; treating it as a Mind Body Syndrome (TMS).

A lot of people wander around in the pelvic pain support groups, talking about various medical treatments and the hopelessness. They haven’t yet meandered into this camp, over here, where we have stopped talking about all those things and focus only on how to connect to our inner emotional world, relax our bodies, take care of ourselves, practice self-kindness, and turn the journey into one of self-discovery.

Many people simply haven’t heard that healing pelvic pain this way is possible. Others are afraid it won’t work. Others find it downright ridiculous.

My hope is to create change. I want to create greater awareness around mind-body healing, so that those people who haven’t heard of it yet, but might need it, are able to find the path. I want people to know that mind-body healing works. I want to create more and more community around this so that people who are ready to take a mind-body approach don’t have to do it alone. I want to create more and more hope, and a place where people can talk about these private and lonely struggles in order to mine the gold and return to health.

If you’re feeling alone and scared, like I used to feel, let me just say this:

You can do it. You can heal. You have what it takes. You are not alone, not by a long shot. There is nothing wrong with you. You are not broken. Pelvic pain is just like any other mind-body pain, and we can talk about it, here on my Facebook page, here on the blog, and in the Kindness Community. Feel free to share. You are strong, even when you feel you’ve been brought to your knees.

I remember what it feels like, and I hold a vision for anyone who is struggling. I see you as healthy, because you are. I see you as whole, because you are. I see you as growing to know yourself in ways that will bring you much more joy and happiness than you even knew was possible, even if you’re really pissed off right now about the pain. I know you’ll face challenges on your healing journey. It will feel hard and liberating in turn. It will be messy. It will also be transformational and the ultimate healing experience – mind, body, and soul

You can do it.
You’re not alone.

Instead of going bananas, however, I ended up following my Inner Healer (see previous posts) and discovering an amazing woman named Kathleen (see the Barratt Breathworks link on my blogroll).  I’ve spoken of her before, because she taught me how to elicit a relaxation response from my body and immediately snap out of panic.  Before my first appointment with Kathleen, I had reached the point where I actually wanted to go bananas.  I figured insanity would at least bring with it blessed unawareness and thus relief.  What I didn’t realize was what I really sought was awareness, or consciousness.

Kathleen introduced me to awareness, which I found so inviting I studied it in depth and found an entirely new career as a result.  Awareness is simply the ability to step outside of your own thinking long enough to separate yourself from your thoughts.  Eckhart Tolle discusses this in depth in A New Earth, and this is truly the key to releasing the despair around pain.  The most incredible notion about pain is this: pain is pain.  It is something that occurs in the body, and nothing more.  When we are unaware and involved in our thoughts, we believe many things about pain, such as “pain is horrible, pain is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, I can’t stand this pain, I can never live a normal life again, my life is ruined,” and on and on.  It’s easy to see, as someone looking at these thoughts rather than believing them, that these thoughts escalate anxiety and panic.

With awareness, you can step away from these thoughts and see pain for what it is.  Pain is a messenger.  It is a way for your body to communicate with you and help you stay alive.  It tells you to remove your hand from the hot stove.  It sends you to the emergency room when you have a severe illness that needs immediate attention.  It lets you know you’ve broken a bone so you can seek a doctor for help.  Pain is on your side.  Hating pain is not helpful at all on the road to healing.  Looking at pain with clear thinking actually invites you to learn about yourself and reach emotional equilibrium.

Once I saw my pain as a messenger, I began to listen to it and question it.  Clearly, it wasn’t there to save me from death, as my condition was not going to kill me.  So I literally asked it why it was in my body, sometimes with a journal in hand and other times while in a relaxed, meditative state.  Every time, it responded with this enigmatic answer: “I am here to teach you.  I will go when you have learned.”  I did not make that up mentally – it simply came to me.  At first, I felt very confused.  Teach me what?  I wanted to learn it quickly, whatever it was, so the pain would go. 

Of course, that was the whole point.  It was there to teach me how to listen to my essential self, my inner healer, and stop resisting everything in my life.  It was there to teach me how to become aware, to see my own thoughts as separate from myself.  It was there to teach me how to follow my North Star and discover my purpose in life.  It was there to teach me how to find joy, calm, peace, and love.  It was there to teach me how to truly feel good, confident, strong, and alive. 

I became so entranced in the learning process I forgot about my teacher.  I ceased to focus on the pain, and my attention turned to the material I was learning.  I fell in love with awareness.  I studied Martha Beck, Dr. Sarno, Pema Chodron, and a host of other writers’ works.  One day, I woke up and realized I hadn’t felt a symptom in months.  Yes, it’s really true.  I actually forgot about my condition and ceased to focus on my symptoms entirely. 

Instead of escaping through unawareness, I lived in my own skin with absolute awareness.  I learned from Pain, my Teacher.  And when I truly understood, my Teacher left, as promised.  Never in my life have I had such an effective learning experience.  I have a PhD in my essential self.  I will never stop studying, because I know I can learn more, always.  And truly, the joy is in the learning.         

The more I breathed, the more I calmed down.  The more I calmed down and learned to do the breathing exercises at home, the more I was able to hear my Inner Healer.  I followed her instructions and started seeking out a myriad of different treatments.  I kept seeing my vulvovaginal specialist, because he was the first doctor who seemed to know what was going on and did not brush me off.  I was tired of doctors telling me this was in my head, this wasn’t a real problem, I should see a therapist, etc.  I wasn’t seeing amazing results from my Western medicine approach, but I didn’t feel like I needed to stop the treatments.  I just listened to my Inner Healer and started adding. First, I added chiropractic work on all the muscles of my lower body that relate to the pelvic floor.  My Inner Healer found this a good choice.  Then, she sent me to an acupuncturist.  She did not like the first one I went to, so I followed her advice and went to another one.  He was fantastic and helped me on my journey to health.  She pointed me in the direction of therapy, which only added to the improvements. 

She became the architect of my life, and I liked her so much I hired her permanently.   Eventually, on her recommendation, I let go of chiropractic, acupuncture, medication, physical therapy, and therapy.  Though they all served their purpose, they weren’t necessary after a while, and though I was actually still having physical symptoms, I was so sure of my Inner Healer that I was not even concerned about letting these other therapies go.  I kept the breathing and relaxation techniques, and I followed her lead into the realm of working with my own mind.  I began studying different books about the power of the mind, and eventually I discovered Martha Beck and her life coaching techniques.  

My Inner Healer led me right to my life’s purpose, because, like I mentioned two posts ago, the Inner Healer and what Martha Beck calls the essential self are truly one and the same.  My path to health was also my path to joy and truth within myself. 

Though I used many different healing modalities, I would never tell anyone to follow in my footsteps.  Even though I did heal and do live completely pain-free, take no medications, and follow no strict dietary regimens, I would not tell anyone my way is the right or only way.  You each have an Inner Healer, and your Inner Healer knows what you need.  She knows what’s right for you.  My job, as a life coach, is to help you uncover her, guide you to emotional strength, and support you as you move toward a place of feeling good.  At last.   

Nope.  Nothing changed.  I completely lost it and became an emotional conglomoration of complete panic, despair, and anger.  I imagine my inner self as a big, black swirling cloud during that time.   

Prior to my meltdown, I was doing pretty well emotionally because I was fresh from my trip to the specialist and full of new hope.  I was sure the treatments would work, and I was feeling so much better mentally that I was able to hear my Inner Healer (see previous post) when she spoke to me.  During a physical therapy appointment, my physical therapist mentioned a local woman who taught breathing and relaxation techniques.  My physical therapist was treating myself and another woman with vulvodynia at the time, and she was always looking for anything that might help us.  She gave me this woman’s card and said, “Why not try it?  We’re trying to relax your pelvic floor muscles and here’s a person who specializes in deep breathing and relaxation.  It can’t hurt!”   

I took the card enthusiastically, looked at it, and KNEW.  I just knew I had to make an appointment to see this woman.  My Inner Healer was adamant.  I was certainly not in tune with my Inner Healer at the time, but that momentary pause in the panic and despair litany in my mind was just enough to let her message come through.  For me, that moment was one of those pivotal, life-changing moments I will forever cherish.   

Shortly after this appointment, I began the meltdown and spiral into complete and utter hopelessness.  The medication was not working, I was reacting badly to another medication, the muscle relaxants left me feeling loopy, and physical therapy hurt even more than I had thought possible.  Luckily, I had already made my appointment with the breathing teacher, and I was grasping desperately for any help at this point.  I dragged myself to see her.   

I cannot even explain the magic of that appointment.  Yes, I learned the first few breathing techniques, but I also experienced a magical, soothing calm just from being in Kathleen’s presence.  She guided me into a relaxation state, soothed me into deep breathing, and for the first time in so many months, brought me out of panic.  My Inner Healer was absolutely right.  This was the woman I needed to see.  This was the beginning of my journey, the impetus for the surrender into acceptance and the move forward into healing my emotions.  I will be forever grateful for every part of that experience and all that I learned from Kathleen as she worked with me over the next several months.   

My Inner Healer led me to Kathleen so I could learn to listen to my Inner Healer even more.  And, I believe, so I could teach you how to listen to your Inner Healer and find your own path to peace, calm, joy, and health.  Your Inner Healer knows what you need.    

To learn more about breathing, visit Kathleen’s website at www.BarrattBreathworks.com.

If you’re listening, that is. 

All of the panic, fear, anxiety, anger, and depression surrounding your health issues do a fantastic job of blocking the communication between you and your essential self.  To communicate with her again, you need to discover the thoughts behind all of your feelings.  Those thoughts (remember the Thought Log?) are in your head making a lot of noise.  You can’t hear your essential self through all that ruckus.  All you hear is, “I’ll never get over this,” “I can’t stand this anymore,” “everyone else gets to have a normal sex life and I don’t,” and on and on and on… 

The amazing, awesome essential self is a major key to your return to health.  You absolutely want to contact her, because she is very wise.  In Finding Your North Star, Martha shows you how to access her so you can discover your true purpose in life.  For those of us with health issues, your essential self takes on a new persona.  I like to call her your Inner Healer. 

Your Inner Healer, when she can be heard, will tell you what is right for you every step of the way through your medical crisis.  She will tell you when a doctor is not the right doctor for you and when you’ve found the exact doctor you need to see.  She will tell you whether or not the medication you’re considering is really something you want to try or not.  She will tell you what alternative medicine avenues are right for you.  She will tell you what you need to do on your own to help yourself heal.  She is a genius.  But she has a very soft voice – probably because it’s hoarse from trying to shout over the noise of all those panic-creating thoughts.   

The fastest way to talk to your Inner Healer is to enter that relaxed state of being (discussed in previous posts) in which you watch your breath and remain very quiet.  As you quiet your mind, releasing your hold on your thoughts, and focus on your breath, you will start to feel an inner calm.  Stay in the breath until you feel this – it may feel like a floating sensation or just a very relaxed quiet.  It might help to take any thoughts that pop in your head and imagine them scrolling across a page and then disappearing.  Don’t panic if you don’t hear any messages or don’t have any flashes of intuition.  Simply keep returning to this place as often as you can.  Soon, you will feel moments of knowledge – you will just know what is right for you.  Very peaceful yet insistent ideas will float into your head.  Sometimes these happen during the meditative state, and other times they just happen randomly.  I often hear my Inner Healer the most right at the end of a meditative session.   

I’ll be talking to you about my Inner Healer in future blog posts, so I wanted to introduce you to the idea today.  Have fun with this – your Inner Healer is a blast to get to know (she’s the person I was talking about in my last post – the one who rocks).  See if you can meet her and start the flow of communication today. 

I remember this feeling well.  I was living in a beautiful little house only a mile from the ocean with lots of friends, a great husband, a really cute dog, and a good job.  From the outside looking in, my life was great.  Inside me, however, everything was dark, black, and unbearable.  I had struggled with depression prior to my vulvodynia diagnosis, but the onset of physical symptoms seemed to bring a whole new level of depression into my world.  I couldn’t find it in myself to enjoy anything, even if my symptoms were slightly less at the moment.  I was too busy worrying when they’d be back, stronger, and whether or not I’d have to live this way forever.  All I could think about were the things I was missing out on and the life I wanted but did not have. 

Looking back on this time, I have a lot of compassion for this me who was suffering so much.  She was in as much emotional pain as she was physical pain, and remembering brings a wash of gratitude into the center of my chest for what I have learned from her.  She went through a lot to bring me to where I am now, and she was a warrior.  She refused to collapse into that black hole of depression and instead took a learning journey right through it to the other side.  She faced the darkness by accepting where she was right then and allowing herself to learn from it.  That is a most humble, self-loving place to be, and I am still in awe of her ability to be there in the face of physical pain.   

I think of it as surrendering.  It felt like it, at the time – I was waving my white flag and saying, “Okay, I’ll stop fighting.”  Realizing the simple truth – I was where I was, no matter how much I resisted, somehow released me from my own mental nightmare.  I know the minute I stopped fighting, stopped resisting the experience, was the minute I began healing.  I didn’t heal overnight, and I quit expecting to heal overnight.  I quit looking for someone outside of me to give me the perfect answer, because they couldn’t.  I turned inward and found the only expert available on myself – Me.  Not the me thinking all those crazy-making thoughts (I’ll never get better, etc.), but the Me beyond those thoughts.  The deeper, smarter, wiser, calmer, intuitive me.  She rocks.   

Let me just introduce you to page 51.  Well, you’ll need to read up to this page to truly understand it, but even if you only read this much of the book (but how, oh how, could you stop there?!!) you would discover an essential piece of information about healing.  On this page, Tolle talks about identifying with a physical problem or illness too much.  In other words, your identity becomes tied up with the illness in your own thoughts – you think “I have vulvodynia,” you say “I have vulvodynia,” and you do both frequently.  It becomes the central focus of your life.  “Since I have vulvodynia, I can’t…”  Or, “If I didn’t have vulvodynia, I could…”  Your thoughts focus on vulvodynia frequently, if not constantly.  You can no longer separate yourself from this illness.  You can’t imagine life without it anymore, even though you long for just that – desperately.   

Read page 51 carefully, because if you can release yourself from this kind of thinking, you will move toward a state of mind that invites healing rather than blocks healing.  You are not your illness.  You are you – the illness can come or go.  If you tie yourself to this illness and think about it constantly, the illness cannot go.   

You are you. 

Who are you, when you think of you without vulvodynia?  Does that very thought – that you are you, not you with vulvodynia – bring you a tiny sense of relief?  

 I reached a point, brought on perhaps by the endless doctor’s appointments, where I just got tired of the word vulvodynia.  I felt irritated every time someone said it.  I felt silly saying it.  I felt embarrassed saying it.  It just didn’t seem right to even say the word in connection with me.  I think my inner self was speaking up, rejecting the illness and the word and asking for health.  I stopped saying “I have vulvodynia.”  I stopped reading about vulvodynia.  I threw the word out of my vocabulary.  When I felt symptoms, I said to myself, “I’m a healthy person who has some symptoms right now.  It’s okay.”  It no longer mattered what those symptoms were, why I had them, or whether or not they were going to go away.  They just were.  Nothing else.   

This was the major turning point in my return to health, the beginning of my discovery regarding  the power of the mind and emotions, and the beginning of my journey towards life coaching, my true North Star (to use Martha Beck language).  So when I read page 51, I felt a welling of gratitude for Tolle, who is sharing with everyone this powerful, incredible secret.   Vulvodynia does not describe you.  You are more than your thoughts, so step outside of them with the breathing techniques I’ve mentioned previously and just discover what you are thinking.  Jot down thoughts that seem prevalent or quite painful in your Thought Log.  It’s always incredible to see what you’re thinking and then to realize you don’t have to buy into it – you are not your thoughts.  You are you.   

I include my iPod in pretty much every breathing and relaxation session I do.  Music is far more powerful than we can even fathom, though someday perhaps science will be able to measure more and more of its effects on our minds and bodies.  Including music in your relaxation session will increase your body’s relaxation response, as long as you use music that you find soothing, of course!  I am a violinist, so I tend to prefer very new age, non-melodic music.  Otherwise, I find myself following the music rather than my breath.  Try different kinds of music and explore what feels right for you.   

Exploring the many recordings of music written specifically for healing can be fun and fascinating.  A lot of people are researching and studying the idea that music has healing power, and it’s really no secret that music influences emotions.  Find the perfect music for you and your switch from panic to peace will be quicker and longer lasting.  As for sound healing, well, I have an open mind.  It certainly can’t hurt to listen to music performed specifically for healing purposes (Dr. Andrew Weil has a fantastic recording that also includes guided imagery).  I have found healing music to be profoundly relaxing, enjoyable to listen to, and very mood-enhancing, which is perhaps the very secret to its power.  The emotions we feel affect us physically, as you know, so the more we can move from negative to positive emotions, the better we will feel mentally and physically.

Besides, with your headphones on and soothing music blocking out other noises, you pretty much can’t help but relax.  It makes it even easier to focus on the breath and invite relaxation into your mind and body.  Some of my favorite sound healers are Jonathan Goldman, Kimba Arem, and Steven Halpern.  Once you start exploring this fascinating genre of music, you just might get hooked – on the sounds, the feelings, and the healing.

When you push the panic button, you also push the adrenaline (and other stress hormones) button. Your sympathetic nervous system is activated, which is what surges your body into fight-or-flight mode.  If you are continually feeling fear and panic, you are continually running your sympathetic nervous system, which I compare to running the heat in your home on hot summer days.  Not only does your electric bill go up, but you suffer discomfort.  Your body is not comfortable continually using the sympathetic nervous system, and it will let you know via increased pain.  You won’t feel well, and you won’t heal.  You will be expending useless energy (electric bill up) that could be focused toward healing.   

The parasympathetic nervous system is in charge of your relaxation and is the part of the autonomic nervous system you want to access.  The more you can power down from your fear and panic state into a calm, restful state, the more you can access your body’s own ability to heal.  This is the second reason to take those ten minute breaks to focus your breath and invite it deeper into your body.  The breathing technique creates a relaxation response in your body by activating the parasympathetic nervous system and immediately pulling you out of your fight-or-flight overdrive.  Moving into this healing state and evoking the relaxation response several times a day will only help both your emotional state and your physiological healing. 

Do you see the genius of your body/emotion connection?  Your emotions serve beautifully as messages to you – little reminders to pay attention.  Fear and panic are your internal sticky-notes reminding you to return to a relaxation response.  The more you listen to these emotions rather than focusing on them and return to your healing state, the better you will feel emotionally and physically.  Soon, you will be spending more time in a healing state than in a fight-or-flight response.  This will feel about ten million times better to you, even with your symptoms still present.  Your symptoms will not be as strong, and your emotions will not be as intense.  Ah, sweet relief. 

Here’s how you can push the un-panic button.  Find a place where you can be alone for ten minutes.  If you can lie on your back, go for it.  You might even cover yourself with a blanket, as that tends to be a soothing feeling for most people.  It’s time to soothe both your body and mind, so you need to feel safe, as comfortable as possible, and quiet.  Close your eyes, and follow your breath for ten breaths.  Watch the breath go in, watch it go out, and notice the feeling you have inside your chest.  Now move the breath a little deeper – no forcing, just gently expand your ribcage further this time.  Think about your ribs expanding to either side.  After a few of these breaths, allow your breath to fill from a lower point in your pelvis.  Imagine it filling your entire pelvic region before it comes up into the chest and ribs.  If you feel like yawning or taking a quick, full breath, follow this instinct.  Then move back into the deeper breathing. 

As you feel more comfortable with this healing breath, allow your mind to move to a prayer or mantra.  Make sure that whatever you say to yourself is kind, loving, compassionate, and gentle.  You might try, “I am safe right here.  I don’t need to do anything but breathe.”  Or, “The breath is relaxing me and bringing healing energy into my body.”  Anything that feels comforting to you is perfect.   

After ten minutes, the breath will have done its magic.  You will feel more relaxed, released from the panic, and ready to step back from the thoughts you were thinking as the panic escalated.  You might even take a minute to write down what you were thinking and look at the powerful negative statements that create your panic.  You now have a tool to use against these statements, so you no longer need to fear them.  You are taking back the power of your own emotions.