A circuitous path to healing
Lessons derived from failing again and again 🌀
In the beginning there were signs something was off. I kept getting weird digestive issues like heartburn, my hip flexors felt tight no matter how often I stretched, I could not figure out how to “breathe into my ribs”. I started feeling knee pain when I walked down the stairs.
I never considered that I would have pelvic floor issues six years after birth, isn’t that something that happens right away? To my shock and embarrassment, when my daughter was starting kindergarten, I suddenly was faced with pelvic floor prolapse.
According to my OB, I was fine, it was barely stage 1 and basically “what any woman who’s had a vaginal birth” would look like. But I didn’t feel “fine” - I was tight everywhere, I couldn’t seem to stretch enough to release the tension, my digestion was off, I had pelvic pressure during my cycle, and eventually, I had a constant feeling like I needed to pee. Regardless of all of these symptoms and multiple scans, tests, etc. I was told I was fine.
So I did what any Aries would do, I went off on my own to fix the problem and dove at it head first like the Ram I am🐏♈︎! I did all the pilates and read all the articles and workshops and all.of.it. I overwhelmed myself with so much information that for a few months, I just got worse - more tense, more tight, more frustrated than ever.
It took me quite awhile before I realized my pelvic floor wasn’t “loose”, it was too tight. So I joined a program to “restore my core”. I did every single video, all the bonus material, I went all in. Just like in my school days -the over achiever - and if this were graded, I am sure I would have graduated magna cum laude just like in college.
Except I didn’t feel much, the program was so overly simple and the movements were so slow that it felt like child’s play. But I stuck with it and I felt better, but the same issues kept cropping up on a lesser scale.
I went back to my favorite pilates videos, but it seemed the more I worked out, the tighter I got, and the cycle continued and my frustration built.
Luckily, the IG algorithm gods led me to another teacher. She was my age, she was strong AF and her message was simple. She had a major pelvic injury from birth in her 20’s that left her unable to function normally, and rehabbed herself over the past two decades. Her program was expensive, but, in my Aries way, “I initiate”- I was the first person to sign up. And once again, dove in head first.
In the next program, I learned new techniques, the focus was on old school weight training, not the yoga and pilates I was accustomed to. I quickly realized I didn’t know how to be on my feet. So I spent weeks just learning how to put weight in my BIG TOE. Sometimes, while simply shifting my weight back and forth, I would suddenly burst into tears. I couldn’t explain it, but on a deeper level it I knew it was some kind of somatic release, so I forged on.
As I progressed through the program, I would have major breakthroughs and all of a sudden feel a muscle engage I’ve never felt before, or feel my back open up tension that I’d been holding for years. My posture changed, my symptoms eased, I was back to normal!
And then I would relapse. The tension came back. I ignored it and pushed ahead. It got worse. I was more concerned with “acing the program” then listening to the subtle cues my body was sending me.
Not until tension turned to pain, and then I finally backed off and went back to square one. And I had to start over from the beginning, not once, not twice, but three times.
I finally started to get the hint. It doesn’t matter that I had all the information. In my mind I knew the techniques, I had a mentor and a guide, I had all the tools I needed.
But I didn’t have the patience to let my body catch up to my mind. Creating new neural pathways takes time and repetition. It’s one thing to learn a new skill and understand it intellectually. It’s another thing to master that skill and integrate into your system.
Eventually, I had to quit that program altogether, because I couldn’t help but keep pushing ahead. It was still a little too advanced for me, I needed more time for integration. So reluctantly, and feeling a bit like a failure, I terminated my membership.
And I felt worse than ever. My prolapse was gone but I developed new ailments, tennis elbow and pain in both wrists, low back pain, and an overall feeling of my body feeling “locked down” and immobile. It was so, so frustrating for someone who loves to move.
Luckily, my knowledge of astrology gave me some insight. And since Mars was retrograde, I knew it was a time for rest and review. I gave myself a few weeks to stop training. I only took long walks and did gentle stretches or flows. I went to acupuncture and tried to chill out. Then I went all the way back to the beginning - to the very first program that was far too basic. Except this time it didn’t feel basic at all. Those tiny micro movements felt crazy challenging! I thought I had failed, but the advanced program had given me the foundation I needed to let go of the tension and actually let the deeper core muscles turn on when they needed to. Turns out, I wasn’t too advanced for the first program, I was simply too tight. I had to unlearn so much before I could actually take in new information.
This circuitous journey has taught me so much beyond physical healing. It has reminded me that any healing (especially from trauma), is not linear. There is no straight line from A to B. You learn, you integrate, you regress, you unlearn, you integrate, you circle back to the beginning, and probably take a few side roads and diversions as I did at various moments through the process when life got busy.
So many of my perceived failures were actually my body’s intelligent system using the knowledge it had to cope and find a way to do what I was asking it to. Every time I pushed forward too fast, the tension came back because my body was going back to its old pattern. The one it so expertly developed to pick up the slack for the muscles that were weak, the pathways that were severed during my birth trauma, the protective mechanisms that were put in place so I could go on to mother a premature child in a new city with no support. There was no time back then for patience and healing and tending to my wounds, there was only survival - feeding my infant and coping with a cocaine addict partner gave no space for my needs. So my system supported me by cutting off those wounded places, shutting down the pain and weakness because I needed to be strong. I needed to be the one who was capable, I needed to be the support.
Slowly, my life changed, my partner got sober and my daughter went off to school and didn’t need me every second of the day. Then, finally, the (pelvic) floor dropped out beneath me. My body said, we don’t need to hold this all anymore, it’s time to figure out a new way.
I wanted to rush through the healing. And yesterday, as I sat at the kitchen table crying to my partner that I felt like a failure in my work, I realized I was in that same pattern of trying to rush through the healing. Of course I am repeating the same pattern over and over again, it’s not because I’m bad or stupid, it’s because this is the process of learning and healing and growing. I’m not stuck, I’m right on time.
Astrology and tarot always help me to trust the timing in my life and stay the course when I want to give up. Book a 1:1 session with me for clarity, guidance or a shift in perspective 🫶🏼