231. Pelvic Care For Women with Tami Lynn Kent

If you are a women with a pelvis, this episode is for you. 

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Tami Lynn Kent is a women’s health physical therapist, founder of the original method of Holistic Pelvic Care™ for women, and author of Wild Feminine, Wild Creative, and her newest book Wild Mothering. 

We talked about: 

• What is pelvic care? 
• Pelvic bowl vs pelvic floor. 
• What are bad habits for your pelvic floor?
• How do you know if you have pelvic floor problems?
• How to take care of pelvic health?
• and so much more…

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

So let’s start from the beginning. What is pelvic care?

Well, it’s something that we all should be getting as women.

I think if you think of what if I ask someone, what do you think of as women’s health? They usually name the PAP exam, which is a little bit sad that that’s what we think of, right? Because a PAP exam is really looking for problems.

It’s not preventative. It’s not holistic. It doesn’t help with just general wellness and health.

The pelvis is actually part of our immune system. And we need all the flow of the organs, the chi, the hormones to be flowing well there. And most women that I see as a pelvic physical therapist have congestion.

So we ought to be coming in and receiving internal massage and getting more in touch with the chi of our bodies, accessing it, working with it in a way that’s more preventative, holistic and serves us in mind, body and spirit.

So when I hear the word pelvic, what comes to mind is actually pelvic floor. Is that correct?

Well, I think of the pelvis as the more the whole bowl. So yes, pelvic floor is the base, the muscles at the base of the pelvis. I think that’s one thing is whenever I start with a woman that comes in, I start with a literally an anatomic model of the pelvic bowl, which includes all the bones, the ovaries, the womb, so that she can see because you think we most of us don’t actually know our anatomy, haven’t even seen it and myself included when I started in a PT school.

So I share that and I teach and you can take better care of what you know. So I think of the pelvic bowl as the whole space and all of the muscles, the organs, the chi, the beauty that is there.

So what are some of our daily bad habits for our pelvis?

Well, number one is sitting too much, which I’m guilty of as well. I mean, we are just more sedentary. So movement is really key.

We get a lot of congestion from sitting, congestion, meaning tension, blood flow, not flowing as strongly. And that builds over time kind of like rocks in a river. So things aren’t flowing well.

So movement is really key, getting up at least every hour, moving the body, taking walks. Another one is just not being connected to that space. For many reasons, we tend to be, Western culture tends to be more head oriented, mental.

And so we lose touch with that sort of basic, beautiful rhythm that’s natural within our bodies. And if we connect to that more, we tend to take better care of ourselves because it’s the part of ourselves that will say, get up, stretch, enjoy a cup of tea, take a walk. It’s different than our mind, which might just push, push, push and keep us going rather than living rhythmically.

We’re so guilty. We’re both sitting right now, by the way, right?

And if you tune into your pelvis, you can actually feel your pelvis kind of doesn’t like it.

It’s just, we’re very good at cutting it and just dissociating from it. So we don’t actually hear it. So because I’m more attuned and I’m listening to it more, I just, I noticed my pelvis actually saying, get up and move.

You know, it wants to feel that blood flow, that chi flow, and we’re more naturally meant to be movers.

But how would you know, like, how do you know you’re at the point that you’re actually having a problem with your pelvic problems?

Well, that’s the thing is, so as a women’s health physical therapist, I used to work in a hospital setting. So my oldest son is 24. And when he was born, I left and started my own practice and just never left doing that.

But in the hospital setting, I was mostly seeing women by referral from a urologist who were having problems, urine leakage, pelvic prolapse, pain. I would say what we actually want to do is not just treat symptoms, but back up and treat more preventatively. So yes, I was seeing women with problems.

You know, if you have a problem because you have pain or prolapse or urine leakage. But what I found from working on women’s bodies is everyone had tension. Everyone had disconnection.

Everyone had imbalances from birth injuries, life, menstrual products. And so actually doing bodywork on everyone more preventatively before they had symptoms. So it is much better for us.

And that’s why I talk about it more in a holistic manner of actually coming in, getting a pelvic massage, learning how to do self massage, becoming more aware of your own anatomy, and then get to the level of the chi, the energy of the organs, we can actually be a lot healthier and actually avoid those problems and tune into the beauty and power that’s in this space for us. You mentioned pelvic massage. Is that something we can do ourselves?

It is. So I’ve written three books, as you mentioned, and in Wild Feminine, I talk about how to do self massage. It’s not hard.

You know, you can do massage in any part of your body. You can massage your pelvic floor. And I describe how to do it more specifically in that book in chapter two.

But really it’s about just kind of realizing that you need massage there. I think aren’t even aware of what could be women’s health care, right? Another way is to actually go and see a women’s health physical therapist or practitioner that I’ve trained in holistic pelvic care, which they’re listed on my website, wildfeminine.com, and learn, you know, go in and have a massage. And that kind of teaches you when you have a professional that works and knows how to work with it, then it kind of helps you learn how to then work with your own body.

That’s great information because as women, we grow up to know, oh, well, my muscles are sore. I need a massage, but we don’t really think about the part of us that’s actually really important, such as the pelvic floor.

Absolutely. I think of body work as essential health care, just as a healer myself as a physical therapist. And I certainly didn’t grow up that way.

But then as I came into this profession, and I learned a lot of things, and then I did a lot of massage with my children. And I think of general body work as good health care. So if we can just apply that also to our pelvises and understand that there’s a lot we can do to help our chi and our health of our pelvises on, you know, in a preventative way so that we feel better and feel vibrant and feel healthy and avoid problems.

And you mentioned this type of massage, would you say is covered by normal insurances?

If you go to a physical therapist, it’s in a standard clinic, they usually do take insurance. And so it’s something to check out with the clinic you were planning to go to. So yes, it would be covered under physical therapy.

I don’t take insurance because insurance is such a difficult thing to take as a provider. And I tend to work more efficiently, I might see someone just for two visits and not take insurance out of pay pocket. So it’s really quite affordable in that manner.

So there’s a few different ways to access that care.

Yes, beautiful souls, you deserve the luxury of getting your pelvic checked and getting a massage in that area. I think more commonly, women would feel tension more than pain, right?

Yes, I would say if you have pain, you’ve gone further down the route of tension causing problems. Most women have tension. And sometimes I think it’s like a lot of parts of our body, we are so used to it, it feels normal.

So what will happen is women come and see me, and they might not really realize it’s sort of like the jaw, you don’t realize you’re carrying tension, and then someone starts working on it, you realize, oh my goodness, I’m carrying so much tension there. And so they’ll leave my office and they just feel better. It’s a little bit like a facial too, you know, if you get facial massage, you realize, oh, I’m carrying so much tension in my face.

And then after the massage, you just feel more vibrant, you feel more blood flow, you feel better. It’s the same.

Beautifully said. And obviously, you talk a lot about feminine energy, and this all connects. So for someone who might be new, let’s go back and talk about feminine energy.

How is that different than what we’ve been taught in school? Like, tell us more.

I think I started to be curious about feminine energy, because I was working with the body and the pelvis and women so much. And I felt this kind of potency, if you will, like, like just a vibrancy, and not every woman felt connected to it. And it was more piqued my curiosity, what is this, and I would give that name feminine, it’s not just female, of course, males and females both have the yin yang, the feminine masculine, but to me, that’s where I had to unpack what I thought of as feminine, you know, was feminine, how you dressed, or was feminine, a color, what was feminine, I came to understand it more as an energy, and I would describe it as the energy that infuses life with all beauty. So it’s sort of like the inhale.

It’s when you look outside, and you see the beauty in the in the sky and the flowers, that’s the feminine, it’s like this, it is an expression. So in a way, it’s tied to beauty, but it’s something that do we give that to ourselves, I think of the masculine more as the worker bee, you know, the one that gets things done the task orientation, and in Western cultures, we’re usually encouraged to check things off the list, get things done to be productive, that tends to be more masculine. In nature, the feminine is take a pause, take a moment, inviting the beauty, notice the presence of the moment that beauty, the color, the textures of it.

And that’s to me is what I came to know as feminine.

Beautifully said. And would you agree with me if we really need to tap into that feminine energy, because the go go do do do masculine energy can get only get you so far?

What I learned kind of the hard way too, because I myself was like a, you know, recovering academic, hardcore, task oriented female, I started to realize that I was depleting myself. And so were the women I was serving. So yes, if you’re only in your masculine, you’re only using your energy, and you can only get away with that so long without the infill without the receiving.

So to me, the feminine is vital for for living well for replenishing and also for just enjoying life. You know, when you’re task oriented, you’re, it’s a list, and it’s never going to end, it’s linear. So the feminine gives you that pause gives you that refill gives you that wonder in the moment that actually makes life really worth living, makes it more beautiful.

And so I think it’s essential for living well.

Beautifully said. And I think a lot of women, we don’t actually take care of a body or start thinking about our pelvic care until we actually either have a child or feel the tension for someone who might be a little bit younger, who might not have a child yet, would you say pelvic care is still important?

Yeah, that’s one of the aspects where I when I left the hospital. So in the hospital, I was seeing women post menopausal and older. And when I left the hospital and started my own practice, I started seeing women much younger of all ages.

So I’ve seen women, you know, 18 1920 years old in their early 20s. And what I was surprised by was how much tension young women carry as well. And I think they’re able to mask it a little bit more because you know, life hasn’t had the impact as much yet.

But it’s beautiful to get that worked on more preventatively. And just you don’t know it’s there. And then but once you clear it out, it feels so much better.

Also, younger women are sometimes having menstrual cramps, you know, menstruation isn’t supposed to be painful at all. And so again, that’s thought of as normal, but it’s not. That’s a sign of tension.

And so I’ll have women come in and they just feel they feel better, their periods are smoother and easier. And I think also when you’re younger, attuning to your own center on an earlier side of life, you tend to know a little bit more about what you want and who you are. Whereas we can if we’re not attuned to that we can shape ourselves to the outer world to either our jobs or partners or what something external is telling us and then we have to course correct later.

So it’s nice to kind of get that connection early on and you tend to chart your life a little bit more with yourself included.

Great to take those preventive actions before it happens. But for someone who might be going through menopause or a little bit older, how would you say is the best way to take care of pelvic health?

Well, once again, I say pelvic massage. So I’m menopausal. So I really know that in my own body and things tend to you know, we have less hormone flow.

And so in a way, that’s sometimes why symptoms are silent until menopause because when you have less hormone flow, things will show up a little bit more. So again, if you have health in the tissues, working with the massage, working with the breath and the chi, you’re going to be healthier and more vibrant. So regardless of what is happening.

Thank you. Well, is there a favorite quote that you go by in life?

There’s so many because I love so many books, but I was going to just share the one that I have at the beginning of Wild Feminine. It’s from Marian Woodman, who is an elder that’s passed on and I really honor her. She wrote many books, she understood the feminine well, she wrote this, she says this quote from her book Bone Dying into Life, the great work that is beginning is the realization of the feminine as the bridge between God and humankind.

And what she meant by that is, here we are in our bodies living our lives, but what makes it deeper, what makes it more magical, what brings in the mystery is the feminine. So I just invite everyone to ponder what is the feminine and how do you access it in your life?

Great reflections. Thank you for your time, Tami. Where can we connect with you?

Best way to connect with me is on my website, wildfeminine.com. I have classes that I teach. I offer sessions, distant, long distance sessions and in-person and also all my books are there and some of my classes that I teach.

So that’s a great way to connect with me. I’m also on Instagram, Tammy Lynn Kent. Look forward to connecting with some of you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lucy.