Why The Womb?! : a Healer’s Journey
If you’re wondering, “Why so much emphasis on the womb?!?,” you are not alone. I had the same question when I stumbled upon this work.
It just seemed so weird to me to give so much attention to a single organ. Or to an organ at all. Or to be touched on that part of my body. It all made me quite uncomfortable for some reason.
Around 2015, I was working as a child and family therapist for kids with severe trauma. I heard about a training being given a woman who is now my teacher. She mentioned working with archetypes and delving into the Divine Feminine. Working in a somewhat bureaucratic agency, with so much focus on trauma, was becoming quite exhausted, and I wanted to bring magic back into my work. I often felt mothering towards my clients, so I thought working with Divine Feminine themes would be helpful. Maybe it would help me understand how to support them better without burning out. I had an intuitive hit. I was in. I didn’t know how or why, but I was definitely in. I would have to make it work.
When I arrived at day one, shy, downtrodden, and a little untrusting of other women, I felt nervous. We were invited to dance, to cuddle, and to massage one another. Coming from this exhausted, un-resourced place, this was so outside of my comfort zone. Then it got worse- we were told we would be massaging our wombs. I wasn’t sure how I had missed this on the brochure. I even felt a bit frantick. Surely this couldn’t be what I had signed up for. I thought I was going to learn how to bring the Divine Mother archetype into my counseling practice, and here I was, lying on the floor of the temple, touching my belly and pelvis. I wanted to run out of the room. But something made me stay.
As I got more versed in womb massage, it still felt awkward to me. For me now, it’s a little comical to see how intimidated I was by a single part of my body. There must have been some potency there for me to have such intense resistance. So still, I stayed.
Then one day, on the second weekend of our training, it all came out. You see, because the womb is hollow, it can hold and contain, and for me, there was so much emotional content that my womb was holding. After a womb massage practice and guided meditation, we were invited to take some free time to sit with ourselves. I went out into the field behind the temple. I sat for only a minute before it all came pouring out. I bellowed so hard, I think I may have scared some of my sisters in the training. I was ready to release, and there was so much to release. I had no idea. The grief. The pain. My miscarriage. My heartbreak. All the times I said “yes” when I meant “no.” All the times I allowed myself to be used. The lineage of physical and sexual abuse and fear. Mother Earth. Oil drilling. My marriage. My relationship to my cycle. There was so much there. I let it all out, sounding, releasing into the Earth. Letting my tears water her.
When I was complete, I bathed myself in the sunlight, with water full of blessing and holy plants. I felt glimmering and light. I was lighter. I had let so much go. Now there was space for magic again in my life. I was magic. And the magic just felt like myself, like my own essence. Finally, for the first time in years, I was at home in my body.
I won’t pretend that womb work became easier for me at that point. There’s definitely a truth to healers needing their own medicine first. As I found my way into sharing this work, I still felt intimidated by the power of the womb. But slowly, with feedback from my very first clients, mainly friends with whom I would share with, I got more and more context for “why the womb??”
What I began to see, time and time again, was how much more my clients felt like themselves after a womb healing session. With this grounding, centering work, it became easy for them to be in touch with their true natures. They would come in exhausted and leave recharged, even if they had an intense session.
In the five years since my studies began, I have obviously had a lot of time to get to know the womb. I actually really love sharing about its nature and even its physiology now. You see, because it is a suspensory organ, meaning it’s literally held, suspended by the ligaments around it, it can get out of alignment.
Improper alignment of the uterus can lead to all sorts of physical concerns: fibroids, endometriosis, infertility/trouble conceiving, painful or heavy periods, cysts, cramping, leaky gut syndrom, urinary tract infections (UTIs), miscarriages, and pain with sex, just to name a few.
But it can also have all kinds of emotional and spiritual implications as well. You see, on a woman’s body, the womb is the spiritual center. It is the part that grounds us to the earth and resources us with her vibrant, yet calming energy. It is the powerhouse of creativity and flow. And if it’s out of alignment, you can feel disconnected, anxious, ungrounded, and dull. The physiology impacts the psychology. Where you lack blood flow, which comes from good alignment, you will also lack flow, in the more esoteric sense. Some might call it chi or life-force energy. It is sustaining and life-giving (hence, why that is the part of our bodies that is generally capable of giving life.)
One of the things I really came to love about this work is how down-to-earth it is. It’s humbling how simple it is to really take care of ourselves, once we know how. I love that I can, in three or so sessions, teach you how to practice self-care massage so that you have these tools for the rest of your life. Anytime you feel off kelter, you can return, again and again, to yourself and to your womb and find your ground. It’s a very humbling practice for me.
If you’re anything like me, and initially feel both called to and intimidated by womb healing, I’d love to work with you. I feel uniquely situated to support you as you approach this work, since my road in was such a long and bumpy one. Now that I’ve arrived, I am planning to stick around for this work for a very long time. Womb healing work, for me, has become a life long path that I am thrilled to be on. I’d love to share with you.
