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 2 of 3 of an overview of all the stuff I did in the middle of that journey.
As I mentioned in a prior episode, I use the chakra system of yoga as a pillar of organization— if you aren’t familiar, it’s like the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs of yoga. While I definitely did not do everything in the order I now present them to you, I wish I would have! It would have made a lot more sense to me, and I hope this is useful for you!
In the previous episode we reviewed the first three chakras— root, sacral, and solar plexus or navel. In this episode, we’ll review the heart and the throat chakras.
We’ll start with the heart chakra, or Anahata in sanskrit. The first lesson I’d like to explore in the heart chakra is boundaries. Boundaries are the invisible lines we draw between our own self and someone else— boundaries can mean physical or personal space, they can be how we define roles and responsibilities in a relationship, it can mean taking or not taking on the emotions or emotional needs of someone, etc.. Some of us have really firm boundaries, perhaps too firm; some of us have absolutely no boundaries; some of us have a mix of both too firm and not firm enough boundaries; and some of us are like goldilocks and have boundaries that are just right. I see my own vaginismus as a physical reaction that developed when I didn’t hold a boundary that I felt I needed through my words or actions. If that resonates with you, great, if not, you can leave it. The second lesson of the heart chakra is grief, which is the emotion we feel due to the loss of something we can’t get back. That could be a person, a relationship, a dynamic, a physical thing, etc. Culturally, I don’t think we really know what to do with grief and, outside of a bereavement period if you work in a salaried job in the U.S., we don’t really make space for it. And as we learned in previous chakras, when we don’t make space for things or let them process through us, there are repercussions, and we often hold on to things in our bodies. The last lesson of the heart chakra is receiving, which is something I think many of us struggle with. Receiving can mean something as simple as receiving a compliment, or receiving help on a project. Receiving requires admitting we can’t do something on our own, or maybe we can, but it would be better if someone helped us. That can be hard for our ego. Receiving also involves receiving love and even pleasure from another.
Moving on to the throat chakra, which is our center of communication, listening— essentially the center of how we interact with the outside world. That includes taking in information just as much as it means expressing or sharing information. It’s the flow of conversation, literally or energetically. Many of us may struggle with saying what we mean, or have a fear of confrontation. This can show up directly relating to vaginismus, because we likely have to have conversations with medical providers and partners about intimate details or things we need from them in order to feel safe, comfortable, and relaxed. It might show up in other areas of our lives where we keep things to ourselves, even if they feel like they need to be expressed. This relates to another lesson of the throat chakra which is expressing ourselves and sharing our story, also known as the power of testimony— this can be through any form of creative expression, not just the voice, but similar to the creative act we discussed in the sacral chakra, sharing our story through words or other modes of communication is a thing that makes us human.
In the last episode, we also discussed how the chakras relate to the nervous system. The heart and throat chakras relate to the social nervous system in a western perspective, or Saatva in the Gunas of yoga. The social nervous system is responsible for feeling bonded and connected to others. It’s important for developing intimacy; it’s shadow is feeling things like FOMO, sacrificing our own needs in order to fit in, hyper socializing, people pleasing, or on the flip side, isolating ourselves, which is why the boundary exploration we’ll continue to explore through the heart chakra is so important.
In the next episode, we’ll review the lessons we can learn from the third eye and crown chakras, 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.
