Diagnosing our Daughters

I am reminded, yet again, how fucking resilient women are. Resilient to a fault. This resilience, affords us the acceptance of intense, invasive, ‘inevitable’ interventions with our reproductive health.

I’ll be more specific, and I could give many examples.

A client came for abdominal massage yesterday. Beautiful, vibrant, Pitta constitution. Early to mid-30’s. Was recommended to see me by a friend, as a part of her fertility journey. She had had painful periods since her first one, which never regulated, because the only option for healing she was given was to go on birth control to reduce the symptoms and ‘regulate’ her bleed. She had been diagnosed with PCOS at the time.

That led her to the Mirena IUD (intra-uterine device) in her 20’s, when she was most-interested in avoiding pregnancy, and with this device, she had no period, no bleed, for ten years. This is what it is designed to do. By the time she met me, now in her 30’s, she had decided to go off hormonal birth control for the first time in over 15 years in order to conceive, and in some sense is going through menarche again.

She came to me for natural support with some serious symptoms; dangerously heavy bleeding, and numerous fibroids. As I understand it, the years of hormonal birth control stopped movement in an area of the body that is built to function in a certain way, to flow. The hormonal medication stopped the ideal functioning of her hormonal cascades, and there was over ten years of stagnation built up in an area that is suppose to build up, and then release every month.

It is normal for a young woman’s cycle to take time to regulate. Our culture does not commonly know how to support a young woman in this transition. Our society is set up for quick fixes in order to keep production and output at it’s highest, and the tools our medical people are trained in are only of the invasive, and quick-fix types. So when a young woman is diagnosed with menstrual difficulties, in general, the maiden and her family are at a loss to do it any other way.

In the type of society I outline above, which most of us probably find ourselves in, having a diagnosis might seem akin to having a solution. But the solutions are short-sighted, and ultimately, they seem to take the power out of ours and our daughters’ hands.

I am not at all blaming this client. I just saw it clearly in her story - the moment her power was taken. The moment her story was starting to be written for her. When our daughters are diagnosed, the Maiden is captured.

The Maiden being the feminine archetype that is associated with youthfulness and the beautiful qualities of that: joyful, light, innocent, as well as adventurous, curious, and open-minded. In the stages of life and places where one is learning from life experiences, the beginner. The Maiden can include pre-pubescent girls, yet She is also very much associated with the young woman just entering into sexuality, or ‘womanhood,’ as her bleeding times signify certain hormonal shifts. And even if one didn’t know about ‘hormones’ per se, we have always been able to note the shifts in our mind, body and emotions, which inform us of a shift in identity and way of being in the world.

This client was given a diagnosis at that ripening of her Maidenhood. It is a very subtle experience, but I see that when we are at one of these vulnerable transition times, it is easy to fall into influence from others. And perhaps this is part of the design, and if so, I see that the ones who we have to influence us in these sacred windows are not as skilled as perhaps our deepest hope of hopes would have them be.

Most of the woman I talk with, friends, and clients and myself included, dream for a wise-woman, or wise-grandmother with generations of lived experiences to be there to hold us through the darker times. Through the murky transitions. To guide us to our own inner truth and trusting our intuitions, showing us multiple paths and options, rather than giving us a frustrating, no-choice, non-solution, solution.

When she was told she needed a strong medication to manage her body, her ability to trust in her body was taken away. She may not have realized this at the time. I wouldn’t expect a 14 year-old to be able to discern that for herself, but now as an adult, she is reflecting on her experiences and how they may have led her to her current, even more challenging, health situation.

The slow unfolding of the relationship with herself was cut short with the need to fix something deemed unfixable - or fixable only by stopping a complex natural process.

I think we can all be relieved when suffering is ended. And at the same time, quick fixes may sometimes be the avoidance of suffering that might be grooming us unto an important evolution of self. Quick fixes in the medical system also seem to just mask or hide disregulation and often comes unintended long-term effects.

In Ayurveda it is important to uproot the cause of imbalance, not just stop the symptoms because if one doesn’t find and stop the cause, it will just keep coming. For example, if a woman has a hysterectomy due to what we would see as excess Pitta dosha (heavy periods, inflammation, etc) just because the organ has been taken out, doesn't mean the Pitta has been brought into balance systemically she she will continue experiencing imbalances but in different places.

So, there was no wisened grandmother, or mother, with different stories or tools to share. This is not my client’s nor her families’ fault, nor even her gynecologist’s. And yet it is also something we can improve for future women. There are tools and options to consider that are simple, natural and also more empowering that can heal things at the root. There are tools which can bring relief and comfort and that do not bring any long-term negative effects on fertility or organ functioning. These tools also, do not have to be mutually exclusive, but they could and maybe should be included in the narrative, and explored to their fullest potential.

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This incredible human resilience found in women, this ability to forgive and forget and rise again, over and over again, can also get us into messy situations when it comes to our reproductive health care. We are designed body, mind and heart, for the intense initiatory experience of childbirth, whether this is something we experience in this life or not. We are designed for that, so when we are asked to do soul-crushing things in another context we ‘can handle it.’

I see this most often when it comes to fertility and assisted reproductive technology (ART). Which, inevitably, if a woman is struggling with fertility, and she goes into a mainstream medical facility, it seems she will endure at some level.

I think it is time to question this ‘it’ that we ‘can handle’ down the the bones. Which things are we willing to endure? For what end? For it is not just the moment of that act that we endure, but we must have the energy, the support, the time and the knowing to give to the healing. To the unwinding from the gritting of teeth while we went against something we knew was ideal for us. While we let someone cross a sacred boundary, who we have have allowed because of a mental reasoning, but the body still resisted the penetration.

Just because our ability to handle something is innate, I pray we don’t have to.

The ‘it’ I am talking about is the complexity of confusion we are fed about our womb and fertility.

The ‘it’ I am talking about includes invasive technologies that penetrate into the deepest core our our bodies, our wombs, to supposedly ‘restore’ health and well-being, or bring us babies.

The ‘it’ I am talking about asks us to spread our legs and splay our innermost essence out to a cold room cold hands, and closed hearts and minds. Again and again.

Just because we can handle it, doesn’t mean it’s the path.

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Someone told me recently that they love my work because they feel I am always bringing in the sacred. At the moment, I didn’t have much of a response except, ‘thank you.’

This comment came about after I was sharing some of the above story, about how women are often told that in order to fix their womb space there must be lots of things shoved up their to ‘see’ that’s going on inside, to find the root of the problem.

In some situations this might be helpful, and mainly perhaps helpful at diagnosing a level of imbalance or disease that is beyond the scope of self healing tools. (Though I will also say, that should ultimately be up to the woman to decide, and perhaps along with her other supportive healers.)

Though I might agree that I have been jaded by the modern medical system when it comes to female health, I actually want to strike the balance with how we make choices as to which tools to reply upon. I had a close cousin who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at 21, and who had never had a pap smear. In her case, she really had no womb care support from any angle. Whether ‘medical’ or not, if she had worked with an aware practitioner, and if she has been a young person who felt empowered to hear her bodies signals, she may have been received support when things were at an earlier stage.

And perhaps not.

I can accept that there is so much we can’t know, yet I want this story to show that I am not against any particular practice or the power of modern medicine. I just think we should all be working together more artfully, and yes, with more reverence for life, and for women.

For me, it is the woman’s boundaries that are sacred. For her boundaries inform her intuition and her inner knowing. She is the one who decides who crosses the boundary. This includes the powerful boundary around her womb. Who she lets in, perhaps literally, as her lover, and her partner, and the potential father of her children. This idea is based on biological truths. The biological truths that the optimal health for a whole human being is to be able to continue life, to reproduce. Whether one chooses to fulfill that role or not, the fully healthy and optimal human includes down to our zygotes. A female is designed to be able to conceive and carry a pregnancy to full term, as well as birth the child into the world, and breast feed them. If a woman or human can not do these things for whatever reason (and sometimes reasons beyond our control in this lifetime, certain genetic inheritance, etc) it does not make them ‘lesser;’ what I state above is simply optimal functioning of the human body.

The sacred boundary is still there in a woman, regardless of her sexual orientation, who decides to try to become pregnant via IVF. In some ways, she is deciding to whom, what and when she is opening herself up to receive. A woman who has no intention of ever getting pregnant is still ideally deciding to whom, what and when she is opening herself to her lover. And that love-making, the hormones, the body, the organs move because they are designed to want to bring life into the world. And knowing our bodies can support us in the above decisions, times when we are deciding to open the boundary.

What I see over and over again is that our sacred boundaries are being violated in our health care system. I think it is because I honor this, and that is what makes my work, this self healing work, seem sacred.

A diagnosis can trick us.

A woman may think she feels fully informed and is opting for invasive support, even in the case of IVF. But I am not sure about that.

The word itself originates from Greek, ‘gnosis’ meaning ‘to know’ and ‘dia’ means ‘apart.’ I am thinking about this as the original understanding was to see that the uncomfortable symptoms one is experiencing is ‘apart’ from ideal or normal, and we can know the patterns within them and this is because we also know what is normal or healthy. This type of ‘diagnosis’ comes from an outside perspective, which we often want when we aren’t feeling well. And we should be able to look for support.

A diagnosis is really just a set of symptoms that often are lumped together. In Ayurveda, we look at the patterns, and then we look at the persons nature, and discern which qualities to bring in to bring balance, and based on the constitution and strength of the person.

I feel like the modern way of utilizing a diagnosis is to fit someone in a box, for which a certain procedure or drug is standard protocol. This could feel empowering for some, if they trust the modern medical system. But what I see and hear more often than not from women is that they are frustrated with the results, to say the least.

Women are smart.

We know that birth control is not fixing the problem.

We want to keep our organs in their body.

We desire to become pregnant by making love to a sacred partner, and experiencing the strength of our body in birth.

If our boundaries are clear, would it be such a battle ground?

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I was interviewed for a podcast recently, in which the host asked me about who I most often work with. Who are my typical clients?

A wide range of women of different ages and aspirations come for learning about self healing, but the ones who hit the hardest are the post-menopausal women who say they wish they knew about this stuff when they were bleeding.

“Before I had my babies,” or “When I was trying to get pregnant,” and “Before I had a hysterectomy.”

Another interesting experience I have, too often not to note, are the side comments those women make during the Ayurvedic bodywork that I do. Most ayurveda massage involves lots of oil, and it is most easily applied if one removes all of one’s clothes.

With permission, I massage around the breast tissue, and on the treatment table, I invite them not to wear underwear so I can work around their hips, and get all the good, healing oil there in the pelvic region (Vata dosha governs the pelvis, and warm oil is the best thing to balance Vata dosha in Ayurveda). They are covered by blankets and sheets, but it is still unusual in our culture to be naked for bodywork.

So, often, when I asked women for permission to expose their breasts, or inform them they can take their underwear off when they get on the table, or guide them from the table to the shower after treatment when they are wrapped in just a sheet, they tell me that they don’t care what I see, because they’ve ‘given birth.’ And when I ask them what they mean (because I am not seeing the parallels between their shower expedition and birth), they share that basically during their birth they were so exposed, so many boundaries were crossed that they thought they had, that they do not care anymore who sees their body.

On the surface, this could seem like an empowered woman who is confident in her body.

But the fact I hear it so often, when women are feeling a bit exposed or vulnerable, tells me the opposite is true.

I hear underneath this that women were disappointed in their birth experiences. I hear that they did not feel protected. I hear that their sacred boundaries were crossed, and even shattered. I hear that their sense of self worth was harmed. And that they had come to a place of acceptance, of defeat.

Yes, in a lot of ways, birth can and maybe should be a moment of ego ‘crushing.’ It is a moment where we do open the widest we ever will; yes physically, because 10 cm is no joke (and a surgical birth, a literal opening that before modern times we would not have come back from at all) and spiritually. Our maiden selves, self-centered, is dying, and the Mother, her heart now living outside her body, her efforts focus on the life of another, is suddenly present in all her gory glory.

This is another of those Sacred Windows in which women transform so deeply, the influence and experience that occur during this period shape the new ego that is being formed. Harmful influence can have a long-lasting effect, as we saw within the Maiden transformation above.

And it is murky to decipher if the wounds are due to a lack of support in the transition to our next identity or if they are due to blatant abuse from our care providers, disguised as life-saving support within our heroic medical system.

Like most things it is probably both/and. But in noticing the wounds, I am seeking out the cause, in order to work out a solution. I am seeking to co-create a different truth, and a different future, for women.

What I want to see in these women, who are elders of mine, is self confidence where that sort of comment doesn’t even need to come out of their mouths. They choose to wear the underwear or not, without having to talk to me about it. They say no if I am asking them to expose themselves beyond their desire for that day.

I want elders, The Priestess and Crones, with a lifetime of practice upholding their sacred boundary. Maidens who have Mothers who are initiated into basic, life-supportive womb healing tools. Mothers who felt wholly supported during the wild ride of conception, pregnancy, birth and the marathon of giving that follows.

Women around the world have found ways to care for themselves, and we can excavate these ways and practices. I am sure that there are many more than what I will include in my writing, but I share them because I have found these tools and perspectives to be very adequate and empowering to myself and other women and I think its important for women’s well-being in general to have them at our disposal.

In Ayurveda, there is no one medicine, herb or practice that is generally safe or recommended to everyone at every time. It is a very individualized science and this informs my way of sharing these tools with folks. It honors the science of Ayurveda to understand this, and sometimes in order to get the most benefit from these natural tools, it is best to get a personal health consultation and guidance. This is not an attempt to make you spend money, or hire a consultant, per se, because I do want these to be empowering tools you can use and do safely within your own home. Though, working with a practitioner is a way to create a relationship with a healer who may be more aligned with your needs and health goals, as well as honor the science and framework used to choose the correct tool, at the optimal time.

So, let’s do it for our daughters.