Rediscover Your Pelvic Floor

Welcome back. Today we're just going to be doing a little bit of a meditation practice on reconnecting and rebuilding the pelvic floor. So of course after childbirth, even if you didn't have a vaginal delivery, if you wound up having a C-section, very often the pelvic floor muscles are just so weak from carrying a baby and having so much pressure on the walls of the pelvic floor. So not a practice you necessarily even want to start until after about six weeks. You're so overwhelmed, there's so much to do in those first six weeks and for the most part you're still draining and losing fluids during the first six weeks. So just let yourself relax, allow for that downward flow of energy and then maybe after six weeks you can start rebuilding and integrating these meditations and these practices. So we'll start here in seated. You may want to sit up on a blanket. I'm going to sit up on a blanket just so it's a little more comfortable and you possibly even want to sit on two blankets. Just be comfortable for your knees. If you need to sit in a chair, that's fine on a ball. Whatever is comfortable for you today. Ankles can be crossed if you're sitting up on the blanket and just have the pelvis kind of upright, lifting up out of the low back. Relax your shoulders, relax your face. Hands can be on the knees, down or up, whatever is preferable to you. And just close the eyes and start to draw the awareness within. Most importantly just let everything relax and become really present to yourself and just start to get a sense of your pelvic floor. Visualize it if you're a visual person. Feel the sensation. And without doing anything, just start to imagine that you could engage that area again.

And you probably have some memory of what it felt like to engage that area before pregnancy, childbirth. It's a lot easier to rebuild all of this strength and this awareness if you felt it before than if you have never felt it in your life. So having that memory works for us. Your body and every cell of your body still has that memory. And then start to connect first with your lower belly, right between the front hip bones and below your belly button. And just get a small sense that you could pull that area in and then release it out. And do that with the exhalation. Pull it in and then release it out before you inhale. Pull it in and release it out. And the reason I'm starting with the lower belly below the navel in between the front hip bones is as you start to pull that area in, you naturally start to engage the pelvic floor. So it may be easier to access here if you focus on that lower area of your abdominals. And the end of the exhale is a lot more natural than the exhale. With the inhale, just let everything soften and relax. And with the exhale, use the contraction of the exhale to help you pull the lower belly in. And then as you're doing that, just pay attention to the pelvic floor. Can you feel it engage? Maybe not yet. It's okay. But maybe, maybe it's subtle. Over time of doing this, you'll start to feel it more and more. And then again, relax. A little more subtle. We're going to actually try and go right to the pelvic floor and get some engagement there. So similar to a Kegel, only I'd like you to add one more layer to it. Rather than just simply tightening and toning that area, also think of lifting it up. The reason is prolapse is so common for women.

In continents, you've probably experienced some of that. Hemorrhoids really common during pregnancy, after pregnancy. So we want to just find a little bit of that idea, that energetic lift in that area. And you can connect it to the perennial area right in front of the anus. And almost like if you were to slouch and then try to lift yourself up to proper posture, upright posture, that can be a really good way to find and connect with it. So maybe just slouch for a moment and then start to tilt your pelvis forward and lift up through the crown of the head. And do that a few times, slouch, let your pelvis tuck under, and then try to tone the pelvic floor, lift your pelvis to upright, and reach up through the crown of the head. Maybe do that another time, slouch, let everything kind of relax, no engagement, and then start to sit upright in the pelvis, lift up through the crown of the head, and feel that that's happening right from the pelvic floor. And then similar to that kegel, just engaging, maybe connecting that a little bit to the lower abdominal, engaging as well, doing it with the breath, or at least just breathing. And notice that in an effort to engage that area, you're tensing up anywhere else in your shoulders, your jaw, your cheeks, let that all go. Really just trying to isolate it to the pelvic floor. Okay. Hopefully you have a slight sense of it here, and if not, don't worry. Consistently working on this, we'll bring it back, and we're going to come to standing and find it there. So we'll move the blanket out of the way for now, and we'll just come to standing, and do this with your feet, hip distance, and just let your arms relax. And same thing like we did in seated. Just let the hips kind of come forward, and slouch in your shoulders, and completely relax through the lower belly and through the pelvic floor. Close your eyes, even let your head kind of dangle. And then like you're trying to find the best posture, you can take the tops of the thighs back, and in taking the tops of the thighs back, see if you can find a little bit of attention at the root of the pelvic floor. Pull the lower belly in as you do so. Lift your chest, lift the crown of the head, and pull the shoulders back. And then here, connecting with the feet your one root, and then your root of your pelvic floor. And see if you can find some engagement there. It may be easier for you to find here, or it may be more difficult than the floor, than seated. We'll go through a lot of different shapes just to see where you connect with it best. And then again, losing your posture, slouching, letting your hips come forward, shoulders sag, head can even sag forward. And then starting to press the tops of the thighs back, pull the lower belly in, lift the chest up, lift the crown of the head, pull the shoulders back. And then see if again you can find that root of the pelvic floor, pull it in, connect it to your lower belly, and see if you can engage it all. If you're more visual, maybe you can visualize those muscles. It may be helpful to look at an anatomy book or Google it, see what it looks like, and then visualize it. Or, white light, filling that area. And anyway, see if you can raise that energy from the root of the pelvic floor, all the way up through the chest, through the head, creating length and lift. And then we're going to take this into Prasarita Padottanasana A. So we'll take the feet apart about a leg's distance. You'll vary that up. And I'd like you to use blocks even if you don't need them. So we'll take the blocks underneath our hands, shoulder distance apart. And the reason that I want to use blocks here is just so that you can press into your hands and that'll help you find that lift. So your feet apart, toes pointing forward, and just kind of sink through your middle back, almost like you're doing a cat cow. And then press the hands, press the feet, and it's almost like you want to slide your feet together. They're not going to actually move. You're just going to pull them up and pull them together. And in doing that, you're going to be lifting the lower belly and the pelvic floor. So press down into your hands, pull the belly in, and try to slide the feet together without them moving. As you do that, your tailbone will tuck under just a bit. And then see if that can help you to find that engagement through your lower belly and the pelvic floor. For me, this is one of the places where I feel it the most powerfully. And then relax, almost like you're doing a cat cow, let the belly sag, chest pull through. And then again, press into your hands, pull the belly in, start to pull the heels together. Maybe you can engage through the pelvic floor, the lower abdominal wall. And then again, relax. Let's do it one more time here. Press the hands, pull the belly in. Maybe you feel the heels starting to pull together. And then again, relax. You can move the blocks out of the way. And we'll find it in downward facing dog. So you'll just set your hands down to the floor, step your feet back, but take your feet a little wider than usual. And if you need to keep your heels off the floor or your knees bent, that's fine.

Similar to Prasarita Padottanasana A here, you have the pressure of both your hands and your feet rooting down into the floor. So use that as a way to find the root of the pelvic floor. So maybe even find a sense that you could push your hands down and squeeze them together and do the same with your feet. Press your feet down and squeeze them together. And in doing that, pull the belly in and up and see if you can engage at the root, your lower belly, the root of the pelvic floor. And then again, release it. And again, having that image of cat cow as well, that can be helpful. Like we're doing a mini cat cow here in down dog. So push down into your hands and your feet, pull the lower belly in, kind of squeeze the hands and feet together so that you can find it. And then relax, release it. And it can even be a shorter down dog too. Maybe try a different length. Maybe it's here. Maybe it's longer. One more time, pressing the hands and the feet, pulling the belly in, seeing if you can engage any amount. Still breathing. And then again releasing. And we'll come down onto our backs for bridge pose. So lying on your backs. And in this version of bridge pose, actually think it'll be more helpful to have your feet a little further away from your sitting bones. So try that out. And you can also try lifting the toes for a moment and pressing the heels down and just start to tuck the tailbone under and squeeze the heels together. They won't actually move off the floor, but just tuck the tailbone under and squeeze the heels together. And then release it. Tuck under heels together and release. Tuck under heels together. Maybe even start to lift the hips up and release. One more time. Tuck under, squeeze the heels together, lift the hips up. Knees will pull forward, maybe even the knees squeeze together a little, and then we release. Then try that with the feet flat. Tuck under a bit, press the heels together, see if you can engage a little harder with the toes down, I find, and then release it. And then we'll come up into Paschimottanasana. So we'll just take the legs out in front. Maybe start with the feet a little further apart and the hands more outside the knees. Again, you can sit up onto a blanket here and just pull the lower belly in. And sometimes as you fold forward, in this case, I'm going to encourage you to round your back a little and just meditate on that same area on the root. Seeing if as you pull in, you can lift up and lengthen. Feel that length coming from the pelvic floor toning. And then exhale and release it. Again, inhale, pull the lower belly in. Even here, you can see if you can squeeze the heels together a little bit. That can help you find it. Maybe even getting the sitting bones involved a little bit, squeezing your sitting bones together. And exhale and releasing one last time. Inhale, seeing if you can engage. And exhale, releasing. Well done. And then we'll just come back to our starting point. Ankles crossed, sitting in an easy seat on a blanket or on the floor. Just bringing the hands to your knees, relaxing here, shoulders down, cheeks soft, closing the eyes. Again, now just letting the belly relax, the pelvic floor relax. Even if you weren't able to find anything, making that effort, setting the intention, visualizing it, you're taking steps in the right direction. And thank you all. Namaste.