[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
when I first heard this nickname I
laughed but I also thought wow my own
secret superhero identity
the thing about nicknames is people give
them to you and I pondered why had I
been given this one the essence of it I
think is that I learned the female
bodies language in order to help women
reconnect with their true power and for
a woman to own her feminine potential
Brene brown taught us about listening to
shame in order to be more wholehearted
what if I told you that understanding
shame in the female body is essential to
address some of the most undertreated
physical and emotional burdens that
women carry today I’d like to invite you
on a journey from shame to honor in the
female body I’ll be talking about the
female body but this is relevant to all
of you men women however you gender
identify because we were all came in
through a female body
it was our beginning place our first
home so how we shame or honor that home
has relevance for all of us for our
first embodied experiences and for the
world we’re creating together now I’m a
women’s health physical therapist and I
know a lot of you haven’t thank you
and that means I’m trained to work with
the muscles and the organs of the pelvis
to help women heal and we really don’t
talk about this but women often need
healing publicly from birth injuries and
chronic stress in the pelvic floor so
let’s get oriented here’s the pelvic
Bowl which is similar in both sexes
isn’t it gorgeous and then of course in
women had contains the ovaries the
vagina the uterus so 20 years ago when I
began treating patients I saw my role
primarily as a mechanic repairing the
physical body and this is still
important because physical physical
medicine is a vital yet hardly known
part of women’s health and I love
teaching women about their Anatomy
because we take better care about better
care of what we know but the thing is
the more I worked with the female body
something greater than physical pain
kept appearing what I found in a woman
after a woman was a deep emotional pain
and a profound feeling of shame
associated with their bodies and pelvic
experiences now there are many layers to
this shame but it’s not an original
feeling we don’t come in as babies
feeling it shame is something that
happens it to us through our experiences
and as we all know shame is not a
comfortable feeling if you have it
associated with something or a part of
your body you tend to distance yourself
from that place the pelvic Bowl houses
our sexuality our creativity and yet
every day I see women in my practice who
are disconnecting from this powerful
place because of shame so wanting to
solve this puzzle
I took extensive notes from my sessions
I started looking for patterns and words
to describe what I was seeing
I began focusing on the power and the
beauty of this space in our bodies
with words like wild feminine and I
developed a holistic approach to pelvic
care that worked with the mind body and
spirit not just the physical symptoms
I’ve now worked with more than 10,000
women listening to the body’s wisdom and
interpreting its silent language after
putting enough pieces together I found
that this shame was actually acting like
a highlighter showing me exactly where
healing was needed the thing is our
instinct is to move away from shame but
moving towards shame guides a pathway
for healing so here are a few truths
that I’ve learned from the female body
the first one is pelvic shame is often
related to trauma and women collectively
have a lot of pelvic trauma now these
are national statistics but they’re
typical of what I see in my office 80
percent of the women I treat report
having experienced physical or sexual
trauma or abuse and now if we had sexual
harassment that number is closer to a
hundred percent very quickly and that’s
true no matter how women identify
racially sexually professionally
although women of color often have more
incidences one in five women will be
raped in their lifetime take a minute to
take in that statistic one in five an
81% of these women will then go on to
have short-term or long-term
consequences like PTSD so the hashtag me
to movement is just bringing out into
the open with those of us working on the
pelvic frontlines have known all along
this is an epidemic and it’s not the end
of the story so
with me here’s another truth the female
body is resilient all the trauma I’ve
seen and felt in women can’t hold a
candle to the strength and the
resilience of the female body and this
is important to say out loud because a
part of the shame for a woman is that
she can feel permanently broken more
often it’s a woman’s connection to her
body that’s broken and this is what
needs healing now healing the body is
different than healing the mind we can’t
think our way there so most women come
into my practice having had traumatic
pelvic experiences and these experiences
create what is called a trauma imprint
this is like a body memory so you may
have experienced this if you’ve had a
car accident and afterwards your muscles
are sore you feel more easily startled
might even feel afraid to drive these
trauma imprints for women can show up as
physical pain and the pelvic muscles
increased anxiety in her nervous system
or even an outright rejection of her
body all of these things disrupt a
woman’s basic sense of peace and
pleasure in her Center now while we
openly talk about and treat an injury
from a car accident it’s still taboo and
uncomfortable to talk about injury from
rape abuse or birth trauma women are
often alone in these painful body based
experiences and we need to fix that and
by we I mean all of us men let’s not
leave our women alone and if you don’t
know how to help her just ask let me
tell you what women bring into my office
a new mother
whose traumatic birth made her feel like
her first act of motherhood was a
failure an artist who paints but can’t
own her full creative power because her
body is a reminder of the child abuse
she experienced a cyclist whose bike
crash left her with pelvic pain in
painful sex a woman who can’t orgasm
with her partner because a past rape is
triggered during intimacy a corporate
executive whose powerful role at work is
no consolation for the string of
miscarriages she quietly quietly grieves
the thing is I could go on and on when
these things go untreated
there is a huge cost to each women woman
and those who love her well we can’t
change that trauma and struggle happens
we can change how we hold it in our
bodies so we can feel good again in our
bodies so for example when a woman comes
to see me with miscarriage abortion or
birth loss I help her to acknowledge the
grief so it’s not held in our body can
you feel that with me she doesn’t have
to hold it when she’s experienced a rape
or abuse I help her feel safe able to be
present in her body to reclaim her body
as her own that’s right and with birth
trauma I help her release the shock and
make a new imprint in my care I strive
to honor the woman in front of me
because honor is a healing antidote to
now this process of dismantling the
Schoen body structure can seem
complicated but I want to show you how
simple it can be with a story about my
three sons and the way that language can
create a culture of respect for the body
my sons are older now but when they were
little and following me around I was
open with them about my menstruation
when I was bleeding and they saw me
pulling out menstrual pads and had
questions I told them about my bleeding
time of course they were more interested
in the adhesive qualities of the pads
because they figured out that they could
adhere them to their forearms while they
were fighting as armor
smart boy in case you don’t know brave
boys sometimes need armor and menstrual
pads are awesome for that but eventually
one of them said yuck when they saw my
bleeding so I explained the blood was
not yucky but actually powerful it’s the
original layer in the uterus that fed
all of us is babies before the placenta
was made the blood is what gives us life
but when a woman doesn’t have a baby it
sheds over the years I also said be
gentle with the women in your lives when
they’re bleeding because it can be hard
to get up and go to work or school when
you’re on your bleeding time then one
time when one of my son’s was 11 he had
a sleepover during the night our old
Portland house toilet stopped working
and I bled into the toilet without being
able to flush properly imagine my
surprise the next morning when I heard a
scream my son’s friend yelled out
someone must have bled to death in the
bathroom my son came running to his
friend saw him staring at the blood in
the toilet and said casually oh that’s
yeah it’s that simple so much was
conveyed in that simple exchange the
openness the love that lack of shame
right let’s talk to our sons so they
become the brothers partners friends and
fathers who can help build a culture
that honors women with my sons this
respect for the bleeding time is
translated into conversations about
respect not only for the female body but
for their bodies sexuality consent and
more that is rooted in a bodily context
for a cultural perspective a talented
Belizian healer named Donnelly heal
Ponte who died at age 103 about 25 years
ago told one of my teachers that his
village listened around the fire in the
morning to the dreams of menstruating
women because it was understood that
they had psychic and valuable
information during that time as a
Western woman that story
oh my mind imagine listening to the
dreams of menstruating women talk about
honoring feminine wisdom respect for the
female body is a North Star that we can
track our actions to let’s treat the
women and girls in our lives with
respect for the rhythms of their bodies
so they learn to respect and care for
themselves more fully in my treatment
room I see this healing movement one by
one as women make the shift from shame
to honor in regards to their own bodies
but this is a roadmap for a collective
shift first we tell the truth about our
pain
shame in regards to the female body so
we know where to do our work and that’s
where we are with hashtag me too next we
heal our pain so we can honor our bodies
our cycles in our wisdom I invite us all
to lean into our shame and start
listening to our bodies you could search
for holistic pelvic care or women’s
health physical therapy on the web to
find providers wherever you are and then
how can we together create whole new
ways of being in our bodies that aren’t
just reactions to pain but give
expression to our fast and true
potential remaking our world from a
place of honor for the female body this
is the wild feminine medicine for our time
[Music]
[Applause]
when I first heard this nickname I
laughed but I also thought wow my own
secret superhero identity
the thing about nicknames is people give
them to you and I pondered why had I
been given this one the essence of it I
think is that I learned the female
bodies language in order to help women
reconnect with their true power and for
a woman to own her feminine potential
Brene brown taught us about listening to
shame in order to be more wholehearted
what if I told you that understanding
shame in the female body is essential to
address some of the most undertreated
physical and emotional burdens that
women carry today I’d like to invite you
on a journey from shame to honor in the
female body I’ll be talking about the
female body but this is relevant to all
of you men women however you gender
identify because we were all came in
through a female body
it was our beginning place our first
home so how we shame or honor that home
has relevance for all of us for our
first embodied experiences and for the
world we’re creating together now I’m a
women’s health physical therapist and I
know a lot of you haven’t thank you
and that means I’m trained to work with
the muscles and the organs of the pelvis
to help women heal and we really don’t
talk about this but women often need
healing publicly from birth injuries and
chronic stress in the pelvic floor so
let’s get oriented here’s the pelvic
Bowl which is similar in both sexes
isn’t it gorgeous and then of course in
women had contains the ovaries the
vagina the uterus so 20 years ago when I
began treating patients I saw my role
primarily as a mechanic repairing the
physical body and this is still
important because physical physical
medicine is a vital yet hardly known
part of women’s health and I love
teaching women about their Anatomy
because we take better care about better
care of what we know but the thing is
the more I worked with the female body
something greater than physical pain
kept appearing what I found in a woman
after a woman was a deep emotional pain
and a profound feeling of shame
associated with their bodies and pelvic
experiences now there are many layers to
this shame but it’s not an original
feeling we don’t come in as babies
feeling it shame is something that
happens it to us through our experiences
and as we all know shame is not a
comfortable feeling if you have it
associated with something or a part of
your body you tend to distance yourself
from that place the pelvic Bowl houses
our sexuality our creativity and yet
every day I see women in my practice who
are disconnecting from this powerful
place because of shame so wanting to
solve this puzzle
I took extensive notes from my sessions
I started looking for patterns and words
to describe what I was seeing
I began focusing on the power and the
beauty of this space in our bodies
with words like wild feminine and I
developed a holistic approach to pelvic
care that worked with the mind body and
spirit not just the physical symptoms
I’ve now worked with more than 10,000
women listening to the body’s wisdom and
interpreting its silent language after
putting enough pieces together I found
that this shame was actually acting like
a highlighter showing me exactly where
healing was needed the thing is our
instinct is to move away from shame but
moving towards shame guides a pathway
for healing so here are a few truths
that I’ve learned from the female body
the first one is pelvic shame is often
related to trauma and women collectively
have a lot of pelvic trauma now these
are national statistics but they’re
typical of what I see in my office 80
percent of the women I treat report
having experienced physical or sexual
trauma or abuse and now if we had sexual
harassment that number is closer to a
hundred percent very quickly and that’s
true no matter how women identify
racially sexually professionally
although women of color often have more
incidences one in five women will be
raped in their lifetime take a minute to
take in that statistic one in five an
81% of these women will then go on to
have short-term or long-term
consequences like PTSD so the hashtag me
to movement is just bringing out into
the open with those of us working on the
pelvic frontlines have known all along
this is an epidemic and it’s not the end
of the story so
with me here’s another truth the female
body is resilient all the trauma I’ve
seen and felt in women can’t hold a
candle to the strength and the
resilience of the female body and this
is important to say out loud because a
part of the shame for a woman is that
she can feel permanently broken more
often it’s a woman’s connection to her
body that’s broken and this is what
needs healing now healing the body is
different than healing the mind we can’t
think our way there so most women come
into my practice having had traumatic
pelvic experiences and these experiences
create what is called a trauma imprint
this is like a body memory so you may
have experienced this if you’ve had a
car accident and afterwards your muscles
are sore you feel more easily startled
might even feel afraid to drive these
trauma imprints for women can show up as
physical pain and the pelvic muscles
increased anxiety in her nervous system
or even an outright rejection of her
body all of these things disrupt a
woman’s basic sense of peace and
pleasure in her Center now while we
openly talk about and treat an injury
from a car accident it’s still taboo and
uncomfortable to talk about injury from
rape abuse or birth trauma women are
often alone in these painful body based
experiences and we need to fix that and
by we I mean all of us men let’s not
leave our women alone and if you don’t
know how to help her just ask let me
tell you what women bring into my office
a new mother
whose traumatic birth made her feel like
her first act of motherhood was a
failure an artist who paints but can’t
own her full creative power because her
body is a reminder of the child abuse
she experienced a cyclist whose bike
crash left her with pelvic pain in
painful sex a woman who can’t orgasm
with her partner because a past rape is
triggered during intimacy a corporate
executive whose powerful role at work is
no consolation for the string of
miscarriages she quietly quietly grieves
the thing is I could go on and on when
these things go untreated
there is a huge cost to each women woman
and those who love her well we can’t
change that trauma and struggle happens
we can change how we hold it in our
bodies so we can feel good again in our
bodies so for example when a woman comes
to see me with miscarriage abortion or
birth loss I help her to acknowledge the
grief so it’s not held in our body can
you feel that with me she doesn’t have
to hold it when she’s experienced a rape
or abuse I help her feel safe able to be
present in her body to reclaim her body
as her own that’s right and with birth
trauma I help her release the shock and
make a new imprint in my care I strive
to honor the woman in front of me
because honor is a healing antidote to
now this process of dismantling the
Schoen body structure can seem
complicated but I want to show you how
simple it can be with a story about my
three sons and the way that language can
create a culture of respect for the body
my sons are older now but when they were
little and following me around I was
open with them about my menstruation
when I was bleeding and they saw me
pulling out menstrual pads and had
questions I told them about my bleeding
time of course they were more interested
in the adhesive qualities of the pads
because they figured out that they could
adhere them to their forearms while they
were fighting as armor
smart boy in case you don’t know brave
boys sometimes need armor and menstrual
pads are awesome for that but eventually
one of them said yuck when they saw my
bleeding so I explained the blood was
not yucky but actually powerful it’s the
original layer in the uterus that fed
all of us is babies before the placenta
was made the blood is what gives us life
but when a woman doesn’t have a baby it
sheds over the years I also said be
gentle with the women in your lives when
they’re bleeding because it can be hard
to get up and go to work or school when
you’re on your bleeding time then one
time when one of my son’s was 11 he had
a sleepover during the night our old
Portland house toilet stopped working
and I bled into the toilet without being
able to flush properly imagine my
surprise the next morning when I heard a
scream my son’s friend yelled out
someone must have bled to death in the
bathroom my son came running to his
friend saw him staring at the blood in
the toilet and said casually oh that’s
yeah it’s that simple so much was
conveyed in that simple exchange the
openness the love that lack of shame
right let’s talk to our sons so they
become the brothers partners friends and
fathers who can help build a culture
that honors women with my sons this
respect for the bleeding time is
translated into conversations about
respect not only for the female body but
for their bodies sexuality consent and
more that is rooted in a bodily context
for a cultural perspective a talented
Belizian healer named Donnelly heal
Ponte who died at age 103 about 25 years
ago told one of my teachers that his
village listened around the fire in the
morning to the dreams of menstruating
women because it was understood that
they had psychic and valuable
information during that time as a
Western woman that story
oh my mind imagine listening to the
dreams of menstruating women talk about
honoring feminine wisdom respect for the
female body is a North Star that we can
track our actions to let’s treat the
women and girls in our lives with
respect for the rhythms of their bodies
so they learn to respect and care for
themselves more fully in my treatment
room I see this healing movement one by
one as women make the shift from shame
to honor in regards to their own bodies
but this is a roadmap for a collective
shift first we tell the truth about our
pain
shame in regards to the female body so
we know where to do our work and that’s
where we are with hashtag me too next we
heal our pain so we can honor our bodies
our cycles in our wisdom I invite us all
to lean into our shame and start
listening to our bodies you could search
for holistic pelvic care or women’s
health physical therapy on the web to
find providers wherever you are and then
how can we together create whole new
ways of being in our bodies that aren’t
just reactions to pain but give
expression to our fast and true
potential remaking our world from a
place of honor for the female body this
is the wild feminine medicine for our time
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