The sky was bright blue as I walked across the golden grassy field to sit down by the river, where the cottonwoods grow tall and the northern flickers and magpies come to feast. But there was nothing pastoral about the wind. Gusts over 40 miles an hour buffeted me, causing me to lean forward to keep steady, and I found myself wondering why I hadn’t chosen a more sheltered location for this short walk and a sit.

Almost EVERYONE I work with has something going on in the pelvis. It can be the bigger injuries (like prolapse) or the really frustrating inconveniences (like sneeze pee) or the everyday disappointments (like not orgasming). Often there’s fear, anger, resentment and shame. At the very least, there’s a general disconnect. In this video, I walk you through five essential steps to reconnect with your pelvis.

My second son came into the world two months ago after a long, hard labor, dropping into my midwife’s hands as I knelt on my bed at home. This birth was a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) and I have, in essence, been planning it for seven years, shortly after my first son came into the world after 54 hours with the help of a surgeon’s scalpel, much to my surprise and my devastation.

Here are a handful of resources to help you start thinking differently about HOW you use your body in ways that do or don't support your desire for more core strength. 
 

I want women to be ever reminded that how you birth matters, not because cesareans are wrong but because they MEAN something to your health. But I don't just want to stop there. I want to be a part of the solution to the cesarean epidemic and to the path of healing after a difficult birth or before a next birth. 

So here we are at the playground and a pre-school group shows up to play - mostly 4 and 5 year olds. Three girls come over to my son and wonder why he's not wearing shoes. One informs me that it's dangerous for him to be barefoot.

I realized this week that there are some things that I take for granted, that I tend to assume every other movement teacher already has or does or is. It turns out a few things combine into a unique alchemy in me.

"When energy is blocked in a woman's root [pelvis], either by physical tension, emotional burden, past trauma, or long-term patters of core energy imbalance, it inhibits the energy flow in her life." - Tami Lynn Kent

I will never be or do or say things that are pleasing to everyone. Or if I am, it's probably because I'm not being or doing or saying much at all, an experience that is its own kind of death.

Women are coming away from birth confused and horrified by what has happened to them. We tell them it was their provider. We tell them it was their lack of education. We tell them it was their trauma. This is not the whole truth.

Why stay active when all your food is harvested for you and you can buy it with the work you do while sitting all day? Why change your life to meet your body's movement requirements when you've been trained to be still since infancy? Why give yourself permission to let the belly release when your entire culture is screaming at you to look thin? Why set aside so much of what you've learned when you've gotten by on its tenets?

We live in a culture that pushes toxic body messages. But this idea of not stopping to listen? Not heeding what you hear? Never resting? This is perhaps the most toxic.

Our culture's technological advancements have had the direct effect of causing our bodies to suffer in numerous ways. Technology leads to comfort and the body is all about the path of least resistance, even when it comes at a high cost. It's not your fault. And you can do something about it.