Goddesses Never Age: The Secret Prescription for Radiance, Vitality, and Well-Being (17 page)

THE SEAT OF YOUR CREATIVE POWERS

The pelvic bowl and the muscles, connective tissue, and organs cradled in this area (uterus, ovaries, bladder, urethra, female erotic anatomy, pelvic floor muscles, and large bowel) make up the body’s creative center. This is the place in our bodies from which all creative energy arises. Although some women will use this creative center to give birth to babies and others will not, we all access its life-force energy to birth new ideas into new projects and create new perceptions of who we are and what we would like to contribute while we’re on the earth. The pelvic bowl is associated with the second chakra, the body’s energy center that is governed by our relationships with money, sex, and power.

If you haven’t severed your mind from your body and developed a sense of disconnection from your lower half, you’re probably aware that pleasurable thoughts, actions, and activities increase blood flow and feeling in your sex organs and pelvic bowl. Our souls come into our bodies through our hips at the
back of our pelvic bowl, where the sacrum—or “sacred” bone—is located. This is the place in the body that physical therapist Tami Lynn Kent, author of
Wild Feminine
(Atria Books, 2011), calls the “spirit door.” It’s the entryway into the “birthing field”: the place where energy becomes form. Your pelvis and genitals are your sacred center, the area in the body where you access the energy to create everything—whether it’s a book, a relationship, or a baby.

When we listen to the call of our pelvic energy to live with greater creativity, take more risks, feel more pleasure, and not be afraid of what others might say or think, we are honoring the creative female force within us. If we don’t listen to this call, it’s likely that we’ll experience symptoms of imbalance and disruption in the pelvic area. Fibroids and prolonged heavy bleeding can be Mother Nature’s way of saying, “Pay attention! Are you directing your creative energy into a dead-end job or relationship? Are you abdicating responsibility for your own creative expression to something or someone else while resenting them for holding you back? What needs to be born through you?”

I once heard Esther Hicks tell the story of admiring a gorgeous painting done by an artist friend. Esther asked her, “How long did it take you to paint that?” The woman answered, “Seventy-six years.” Our creative expression is like that. Each year that we walk the earth, we become more creative—
if
we allow ourselves to connect to this life force. And those who open themselves up to creative channels tend to live very joyful and happy lives. That’s why orchestra conductors tend to live a long time, even though they have heavy travel and rehearsal schedules. In his 80s, comedian George Burns, whose career was rejuvenated when he was in his late 70s, would tell people he had to live to be 100 because “I’m booked.” When you have a mission of living creatively, expressing yourself and your ideas to the world, when you let joy and humor flow through you, you’ll find you’re booked. (Yes, George Burns did make it to 100, in good humor and good health. And his cigar habit was one of the “pleasurable rituals” that was obviously part of his health plan!)

Too often, we women repress our creative urges because we don’t trust ourselves or don’t want to bring attention to ourselves.
One of the reasons our culture has such an ongoing love affair with famous actors, musicians, performers, and celebrities is that these people perform the function of being willing to get up on stage and do what so many of us don’t have the courage to do: risk failing in public and being humiliated and judged for our contribution. Celebrity women, whether they’re performers or speakers and cultural innovators, have great courage and enormous self-esteem to keep putting themselves out there year after year despite the shaming they face as women in a culture that is uncomfortable with bold, creative expression by women. Believe me, they aren’t doing it for the money. It’s so easy to stand back and take potshots at those who are willing to play full out and get on a stage or a television screen. But it’s far healthier to, in the words of Theodore Roosevelt, “Dare greatly.” Have the courage to live creatively from your own center.

At some point in our lives, perhaps when we’re finished with up-close-and-personal mothering, we need to access and channel our creative energy in ways that give us pleasure and inspiration—writing a book or poetry, learning how to paint, learning how to dance. The creative urge can also express itself in coming up with new ideas, new business models, or new ways of working with technology. The possibilities are endless. The older we get, the more direct access we have to our creative energy flow.

There are times when a woman wants to honor her creative urges but is stopped in her tracks by fear. How can she spend time innovating and inventing when her retirement accounts are underfunded? The unmet callings of our spirits are often due to playing it safe and being afraid to say no to loved ones who think we should have different priorities. The only way out of this dilemma is to name your fears and then learn the skills of standing up for yourself—even when your children, spouse, or boss has other ideas about how you should spend your time and energy.

Fibroids, cancers, and pain in the pelvic bowl are all indicators that you should explore your longings to live more creatively and authentically with less fear and more adventure. And much of what I’ve already discussed about cancer risk and screening applies in this area of the body as well. The pelvic bowl houses our “low heart,” if you will. Have you been raped, or felt violated
to the point where your sense of security was shattered? If so, it will show up in your pelvis. The health of your pelvic organs is also related to how well you have learned to negotiate the creative energies embodied in money, sex, and power. Ovaries are, quite literally, your female balls—the organs associated with your drive to go after what you want in the world. Quite often this drive has been routed through a man—or through the masculine aspects of ourselves—and pelvic disease is often the result. At the very least, you want to make sure you keep your ovaries. They are removed routinely far too often when women have hysterectomies for benign disease. Ovaries are necessary for hormone production throughout your life, and the risk of removal in terms of overall bone and brain health is far greater than the risk of ovarian cancer in the vast majority of cases. For very extensive discussions on these points, please see
Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom
and
The Wisdom of Menopause.

If you’re reading this book, you have the ability to connect with your birthing field and bring in the resources and support you need to create heaven on earth for yourself. Just ask Spirit to show you exactly how to do this. And be sure to read the chapter on sexuality in this book so you can learn even more about your pelvic bowl and its relationship to your power and sexuality—and more about the psoas (pronounced SOH-us) muscles connected to it.

PELVIC FLOOR MUSCLE TONE

Being disconnected from our pelvic bowl correlates with our ignorance of our pelvic floor muscles. I’m willing to bet you weren’t taught about these muscles in health class back in school!

The pelvic floor muscles involve several interconnected muscles that support the internal organs of the pelvis. Together, they’re like a trampoline or hammock that stretches from your tailbone to your pelvic bone. These muscles lose tone when they are not used properly and regularly, which is the case with most women who sit too much and almost never squat. They stop working together as they should, creating an imbalance. If the pelvic floor muscles lose too much tone, you can even experience
prolapse, which is when the organs the muscles support actually fall through what is called the pelvic diaphragm. Prolapses are usually treated surgically, but it’s better to go to a women’s health physical therapist who knows how to rehabilitate your pelvic floor—or use classical Pilates training for rehabilitation.

Weak pelvic floor muscles may result in stress incontinence (urine leaking upon sneezing, laughing, or moving) or urge incontinence (the feeling that you have to urinate right now or you’ll have an accident). Both these forms of incontinence can get worse over time if the root cause, a weak pelvic floor, isn’t addressed. In the U.S., urinary incontinence is a major reason older women are admitted to nursing homes, but no one wants to talk about how Mom needs help going to the toilet. About one in four women experiences stress incontinence. It’s time to put an end to the shame and secrecy and get serious about this very preventable and treatable problem that, left unchecked, is likely to lead to urinary incontinence down the road!

Women will say, “I have a small bladder,” or “ever since I had babies, I have to ‘go’ all the time,” but neither is an accurate description of urge incontinence or stress incontinence. Both are very treatable conditions that women experience when their pelvic floor muscles aren’t toned. Physicians are likely to recommend pads and adult diapers, surgery, and pharmaceutical drugs. The drugs block the nerve endings that affect the muscle that keeps the bladder from releasing urine, and they are effective. But they can have side effects such as dry mouth, and they don’t address the underlying problem of low tone in the pelvic floor muscles.

Why is low tone in our pelvic floor muscles so common? Our bodies are designed for continual movement and for squatting: for hundreds of thousands of years, women spent much of their time squatting as they prepared meals, cooked, gathered roots from the earth, socialized, defecated, urinated, or gave birth vaginally. But we’re always standing, sitting, or lying down, which causes our pelvic floor muscles to lose tone. The situation can worsen after childbirth or abdominal surgery such as a C-section or hysterectomy, but this risk has been overstated. Even teenagers and women who have never given birth can have low pelvic floor muscle tone. Whatever your age, you can train your muscles and
bladder to feel the urge to urinate, and go, every three to four hours during the day and once, if that, at night.