Adventures in vaginas (and other parts)

Greetings from the Acela and a delightful ride from Boston to Baltimore! I’m a newly minted train convert/evangelist! I spent the weekend at my old stomping grounds in Boston seeing a few clients. It was goddamned delightful. I hadn’t treated folks IRL in a good while, and it was a nice change of pace. Plus, alone time as a parent is pure gold: IFYKYK.

I am trying (trying!) to be good about being a person on the internet. I’m like, not really great at it. My instagram hasn’t been updated in months. My LinkedIn just got a cover photo. You get it. But I post on Notes most days. This week, I posted this: This was one of those moments in life that something you take completely for granted is apparently a revelation for many folks not in your field of expertise.

Pelvic floors and trampolines have a storied, torrid history. SO many personal stress incontinence origin stories begin with “I was at a birthday party at a trampoline park…” You know the end of this story. We pelvic floor therapists also love to compare the pelvic floor itself to a trampoline, and I think it’s worth starting here: A good trampoline (read: a functional pelvic floor) is both strong and resilient. If it’s too stiff, i.e. made out of wood, it’s a bad trampoline.

If you are reading this, I hope you know that I am neither pro nor anti kegel. I am anti illegal kegels, aka the idea that folks are just kegeling away with abandon, not knowing how to actually do them. Additionally, many folks have no business doing kegels — even (and especially!) those with incontinence and/or urgency, as this is often driven by tension. We all sit too much, creating a shorter, less resilient pelvic floor, so I truly stand by the fact that kegels are often not the answer.

Let’s start with a secret: Manual therapy is easy for me. It’s fun. I gossip with people most of the time. Sometimes it is serious and quiet and that is also a different kind of fun for me, the kind where I have the deep honor of holding space for the vulnerability of a person’s body. It is a privilege to do pelvic floor therapy, no matter how you do it. To state the obvious, pelvic health is vulnerable. Pain is vulnerable. Sex is vulnerable.

Hey friends! Happy Thursday! Filming mobility work is honestly one of my favorite things to do. While I am deeply committed to a strength as a cause (and as a hypermobile person myself, I’ll say it changed my body and relationship with my joints dramatically), mobility is still my favorite. It feels GOOD. And for me personally, it supports my nervous system in a way that strength — while helpful — doesn’t touch.

I was listening to this Radiolab episode recently discussing an age-old (kind of) question: How do brains change during the menstrual cycle? It’s a really cool episode, and you should totally give it a listen. If you don’t have time for that shit, what you need to know is that the functional connectivity — how well different parts of the brain communicate with one another — of the brain legit changes through the cycle. Bodies, they’re cool! And yet. OMG LOOK AT THIS CYCLE IMAGE. Source: Clue.

Hello and happy Thursday! I’m always so excited to open up my texts, emails, and DMs with questions from friends, colleagues, clients and readers. This shit literally lights me up. Like, YES, please ask about your tingly butthole! Ask me about your vagina after a kid! Literally any time. Ask me ANYTHING. Why do my nerves go crazy after an orgasm, causing vulvar pain that lasts for days and sometimes weeks. Am I defective? Will I I ever be able to enjoy sex without fear of a long pain flare?

Hiya! I’m so excited to bring you this repeat from 2022(!). I feel like hemorrhoids are like this weird secretive and terrible event that eventually comes for all of us at some point (count yourself blessed if you can’t relate). Enjoy! On really great days, I get texts from people who have just given birth.

Fun fact: For years, I couldn’t feel my left glute complex. I have a labrum tear on the left side from…. life? Living? Fifteen years of aggressively stretchy yoga? Pregnancy, maybe? I have hypermobility, so who’s to say!? My left side has experienced hip and knee pain that has been deeply challenging over the years, but one clear pattern emerged: If I could activate and train that sweet left butt cheek, my pain got so much better.