Hello and welcome to VagQuest: The Podcast! VagQuest was created to bring support, personal insights, and levity to those on a journey with vaginismus and related pelvic floor dysfunction.
My name is Missi and this podcast partners with a program I created to support those of you struggling with moving through vaginismus through a purely physical approach of exercise and dilating. Those are the things that got me started and moved me across the finish line, but in today’s episode, I’ll be providing part 1 of 3 of an overview of all the stuff I did in the middle of that journey.
I want to call out that I did not do everything I’ll be reviewing in the order I’ll be presenting it, or even in between the years long period of diagnosis and recovery. I did some of these things before that time, and some later. It didn’t occur to me until afterward that all of these things aligned really nicely to the format I’ll be sharing with you today. I say that because there will be certain things I talk about in this episode and those that follow that speak to you, and things you may not feel are necessary. If you are anything like me, there will be topics in here to which you’ll respond, “Oh, I don’t need that,” and after doing some other parts of this work, you’ll think “oh, shoot, I do need to do that thing.”
Alright, with that, let’s review part one of the magical format I realized everything fell really nicely into…that format is the chakra system of yoga.
I’d like to start by saying you don’t have to be a yoga practitioner to benefit from this system. For many of you, the phrase “yoga practitioner” means someone who wears lululemon and goes to vinyasa classes at yoga studios. While I teach physical asana as part of the broader Yoga for Vaginismus programming, the primary work I’ll be sharing through this podcast and through the VagQuest program is more philosophical, reflective, and energetic. A journal and pen will be far more beneficial to you than a yoga mat.
If you’re not familiar, the chakra system is often visually represented by those rainbow dots you see on an illustration of a person seated in meditation. Each one of those dots is an energy center that relates to certain systems of the physical body and represents certain qualities, attributes, and lessons. If you’re coming at this from a Western psychological perspective, it’s sort of like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. .
One of the reasons I broke up this overview into parts is because the system has its own groupings. The root, sacral, and solar plexus chakras are all inwardly focused. The heart and throat chakras are how we relate to the outside world, we get brought back inward with the Ajna or third eye chakra, and we connect to a higher power or sense of purpose through our crown chakra.
Okay, let’s dive in!
At the base of our spine we have the root chakra, which represents the foundational aspects of our life— our most basic instinctual urges—safety, security, survival, reproduction. It’s the belief systems we were raised into that we learned from our parents/school/community/religious institution/etc. Many of us weren’t taught to feel safe in our bodies, knowledgeable and proud of our anatomy, secure in our roles in relationships and society, etc. Operationally, that looks like learning to work with our nervous system, deconstructing our belief systems and reconstructing new ones (yes, you can do that!), all so we can feel grounded and safe.
Moving up we have the sacral chakra, which represents our emotions, creativity, play, sensuality, and pleasure. Here we explore what feels good (which sounds basic but so many of us with vaginismus have numbed ourselves to this), we learn how to express any repressed or suppressed emotions like sadness or anger, and we also learn to make space for creativity and play. Through all of these things, we can learn to flow versus hardening ourselves through life’s challenges. One thing I want to double click on here is the fact that this chakra represents a lot of things we culturally treat as superfluous luxuries or nice-to-haves. I grew up and still live in the U.S.; we don’t value rest, we value hustle and constant stimulation. This chakra is the opposite of that. It’s enjoying a sunset. It’s letting yourself feel and ride emotional waves. It’s loving, nurturing touch. It’s singing, dancing, and making art. It’s lounging around and making up little jokes or games with your friends when you’re bored because boredom and doing nothing are when new ideas (and frankly, people) are created and born. That last thing I said—-about new ideas and things being created and born, is really important, and why it’s the second foundational chakra, right above the one that represents the basics of food, water, shelter. As humans, we are unique in that we have the power to create. Without that, we’re essentially animals or really basic robots. This is something I think as a society, we’re good at encouraging in children, but we seem to forget that as we grow into adulthood, when it is just as important.
The last chakra we’ll review in this episode is the navel chakra, which is our center of power. That, perhaps surprisingly, starts with addressing things like shame and guilt, which may seem counterintuitive at face value, but these are the things that, when we hold on to them, prevent us from operating from our ultimate power source. Many cultures and stories have this concept of through the darkness, we see the light and this is no different. Appropriately, this chakra is represented by the color yellow like a little sun in our bellies. And when I say ultimate power source I mean a thing that we learn to tap into to motivate us into action no matter what, and that thing, the thing we can tap into, is joy. Performance science actually backs this up. We are more likely to stay motivated toward a goal and succeed at it if we’re powered by positive emotions and our own visions of success, rather than hatred or competition or other more negative factors. This is such an important chakra for those of us with vaginismus who also struggle with lack of confidence, depression, anxiety, control issues and perfectionism (all of which have been found to have a correlation with vaginismus).
As I mentioned, these chakras are all internally focused. Although I attributed the nervous system to the root chakra, it actually has a relationship with each one of these. The nervous system is important for those of us with vaginismus and for whom exercise and dilating isn’t cutting it, because if our nervous system is out of whack, our pelvic floor is acting up.
Yoga philosophy provided us with our earliest understanding of the nervous system through a concept called the Gunas that dates back to as early as 400 BCE - 200 CE. The Gunas are essentially energetic states, and there are three of them: Tamas, Rajas, and Saatva. In yoga philosophy, the Gunas are states of fluctuation we experience throughout our lives.
* Tamas is a state of immobilization, rest, lethargy, heaviness
* Chakra Association: Root
* Nervous System Association: Dorsal Vagal Complex, Parasympathetic Nervous System (Rest and digest)
* Rajas is a state of mobilization and hyperactivity
* Chakra Association: Sacral, Navel
* Nervous System Association: Sympathetic Nervous System (Fight or flight)
* Saatva is a state of balance and connection
* Chakra Association: Heart, Throat
* Nervous System Association: Ventral Vagal Complex, Social Nervous System
We are constantly moving through these states and may experience more than one state at a time.
Each one of the Gunas and aspects of the nervous system has its strengths and weaknesses, and is vital to not only our survival, but our day-to-day living. Without our SNS/Rajas, we wouldn't wake up in the morning or feel motivated to work on an exciting project. Without the PNS/Tamas, we wouldn't sleep or rest. Without the social nervous system, we wouldn't connect to our communities and loved ones. It’s also been said that we can’t fully reach Saatva until we’ve learned to find balance or learned how to navigate Tamas and Rajas.
I like thinking about the nervous system in this way because for me it simplifies a really complex topic. If my goals as someone with vaginismus is for my pelvic floor to be relaxed and flexible, to feel more connection to my own body and to ultimately feel more connected to a partner— or, in other terms, to reach Saatva, I first have to harness all the powers of Rajas and Tamas. That means I need to learn to feel grounded and safe in my body and environment, to make space to feel my feelings and ride emotional waves, to feel comfortable processing anger, shame, guilt— all the things I don’t want to feel, as well as to feel joy, which for some of us, might be more uncomfortable to feel than the shame and guilt—- I need to do all those things to find balance and connection. Which is what we’ll learn how to do in later episodes!
In the next episode, we’ll review the lessons we can learn from the heart and throat chakras. We’ll review the third-eye and crown chakras after that, and then we’ll dive into the deeper work within each chakra.
If you just cannot wait to do more, you can visit yogaforvaginismus.com, where you can sign up for the free Vaginismus Starter Kit, or the monthly Y4V membership which includes Yoga for Vaginismus, a library of asana, movement, and breathwork practices designed to support people with vaginismus; Divine Dilating, a series of what I call Power Practices, which are guided meditations to use while dilating, and lastly, VagQuest, the course!
Until next time, take deep breaths into your lower rib cage and lower back, and wiggle out anything you’re holding onto from your day, and I’ll see you on the other side of vaginismus. Peace.
