Pelvic Body Love with Jana Danielson

Hey, thanks for coming. Welcome to the Love Shack.

Hey, welcome to the Love Shack. A little old place where we can get together and explore, explore fresh perspectives, eavesdrop on juicy conversations and uncover mysteries that nobody talks about but absolutely influences our relationships. If you are struggling in your marriage, just starting out in a new relationship, or are single and looking to do better next time, this is the show for you. My name is Stacey Bartley and I am here with my co host and lover, Tom. Together for the past decade, we have been teaching and loving on people from around the world with the support purpose of helping individuals and couples to love more and fear less in their relationships, both with themselves and others.

A quick shout out to our podcast listeners. We are live every Thursday at 1pm PST through our awesome radio station up in Seattle, KKNW. And so I share that if you ever want to join us live, ask us a question, text us a question, we'd love to have you join us live. Bottom line is, wherever you are today, wherever you're listening, we appreciate you spending some time with us.

Yeah, it's great to be here with all of you. We so grateful for our listeners. But you know what? Today I've got an incredible topic that I can't wait to share with you. We are going to be talking about pelvic body love.

Pelvic body love.

If you're like most of us when we start putting the words pelvis and relationships at the same time together in the same sentence, the next thought for most of us are. Sucks, right? For us humans, actually, believe it or not, the muscles of your pelvic floor affect so much more than just our abilities to be intimate with our partners. And unknowingly, we can struggle with weak pelvic muscles and they can eventually create urinary stress, incontinence, erectile dysfunction, and painful intercourse. More often than not, these problems begin with things like cold feet, shin splints, low back pain. I mean, simple things that we would swear were unrelated. Now, I know you might be rolling your eyes right now and thinking to yourself, really? We're going to have this conversation on the radio. I understand that these things might be difficult for us to talk about. However, if we don't talk about them, then that leaves us powerless in remedying them. And I'm just not good with that. And I hope that you're not either. The really good news is, according to our guest today, Jana Danielson, who just happens to be a leading expert in health and fitness therapies, well, she's developed this really, really cool tool that she calls a cooch and a gooch ball. Don't you just love that?

A cooch and a gooch ball and.

Using this tool for just three minutes a day will solve these problems once and for all. What's a cooch ball, you ask? Well, you're about to find out. It's time for us all to get in touch with our bodies, folks. We'll be right back to introduce you to our special guest, Jenna Danielson.

Do you feel like your love life is on life support? It's time for a turbocharged relationship resuscitation with an alternative to marriage counseling. Head over to stacybartley.com to learn more about their proprietary programs their clients use to save their relationships. S T A C I B A R T L e y visit staceybartley.com today.

Ready to learn the most important thing you can do to revitalize your relationship today? Go to Stacybartley.com fairydust stacybartley.com fairydust this is the number one thing Stacy teaches her VIP clients that has the power to improve the health of your relationship.

Today.

Learn how sprinkling a little fairy dust in your relationship can stop arguments in their tracks, Rekindle your spark and take your difficult conversations from the struggle bus to easy street.

Do you find yourself attempting to get your point across to friends and family and notice their feelings become hurt instead? Do you tend to feel misunderstood and taken for granted the majority of the time? Instead of listening to others in a conversation, do you find yourself formulating your next response to prove your point? Are you having a difficult time showing up to say anything but you think about doing it a lot? When we feel like we are being the jerk or the doormat in our relationships, we tend to criticize ourselves harshly. The reality is we've never been taught how to share ourselves effectively with those who we care about and love. Your skills as a salesperson, master negotiator, or expert debater will only lead you into a fight. Matters of the heart require different skills for a limited time. Get half off the regular price of a communications workshop designed to help you gain the understanding and skills you need to navigate through your communications with others, giving you the ability and experience to feel heard, appreciated, and a sense that you matter to the people you care about the most. Get all the juicy details@staceybartley.com communication make.

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Welcome back. I am so excited for this conversation. Today we're talking about body love and we have Jana Danielson from Canada here to join us. She is an expert in health therapies and in here to introduce us to this conversation. Jana's own health issues were actually the catalyst for a career shift over 12 years ago from the corporate world of consulting to that as a wellness entrepreneur. And in 2010, she opened her first Pilates studio, Leeds Pilates in Saskatoon, Canada. And in 2015, she expanded her business to a 9,000 square foot, state of the art Pilates studio and integrated health therapies clinic. Her team of instructors, administrators and clinicians will top 60 by the end of the year. Jana launched her online Pilates studio called the Meta District in September of 2019 and just this past April launched her first pelvic floor fitness tool, the Kuch Ball and the Gooch Ball. She's a believer in wellness from the inside out and cannot wait to share her philosophy, hints and tips with us. Jana, it is so great to have you to the show. Welcome. We are so excited to hear of your wisdom and the wonderful people that you serve and why this conversation of pelvic health is so, so, so important. We're so excited to dive into men's health, women's health from the inside out. This is not something that we typically talk about, folks, and I understand that. Right. But it's time that we give it the thought and space and the conversation that it deserves. Our physical and relational wellness is depending on it and I've been looking so forward to sharing this information with our listeners. And guess what, I must confess, Tom and I have been playing around with this Gooch and cooch ball now for, oh, I don't know, about 30 days. So we can share a little bit about that when it's appropriate too. But Jana, welcome to the show. Say hello.

Hi, Tom. Stacy, thank you so much for having. I'm excited to be here and just the opportunity to kind of, you know, dissect the why behind this and just give people, I think information is empowering. And so anytime I can find a stage or a mic to spread kind of my strategies and hints and tips, I always jump at it. So thank you for having me.

Oh, it's incredible to have you here with us. So let's have you. If you would please share a little more with us about your own personal journey to this work. You know, I bet when you were a little girl, you didn't necessarily say, I'm going to grow up and I'm going to be pelvic floor or wellness expert or specialist. So how did you get started in this Field of health and wellness.

You know, it really was. It's by accident, I like to say, is that it was actually, as you alluded to in my bio, my own pain journey that brought me to where I am today as a, you know, a teenager growing up on the farm. I was the eldest of three kids, so we had, you know, lots of room to play, you know, huge gardens that we could grow our vegetables. And, you know, the town was small enough that if you didn't play every single sport that your high school offered, it didn't have a team. And so I was just a very, you know, driven individual, always wanting to do my best. And as I was getting to the end of my high school days, just started experiencing some, what I call digestive pain. And, you know, at first we thought it was maybe just indigestion and, you know, went the medical route to figure out what was going on. And it would kind of come and go when I would get ready for an exam or wait for a guy to give me a call. And it just kind of became part of who I was. But as I was going through university, that pain continued to increase, and it increased to the point where I literally was in pain every single day of my life. And as I was trying to get diagnoses and solutions, the pain never went away. But by the time I was about 21 years old, I was on just about 12 different medications. And some medications were to counteract the side effects of other medications. And so I was living a life that I looked healthy on the outside, but inside I was not. And just the thought of wanting to have a successful career, wanting to be a mom one day, you know, I was my high school sweetheart and I moved from our small town to Saskatoon to go to university. You know, my obviously wanting to spend my life with him, and just kept thinking, how will I. How is this exactly going to work if I have to pretend and hide this pain every single day? So that's what kind of was the jumping off point for me. And because I couldn't get the answers I needed in kind of the traditional path, I had to start looking for different ways.

I really want to acknowledge you for your pursuit of these things. So many of us as human beings, we do live in a state of pretend and illusion, thinking and hoping with our fingers crossed that this is just going to go well as things are marching towards not going so well. It's really courageous of all of us, isn't it? When we finally turn and face the challenges that are happening in our lives and say, I've got to own this. I've got to face off with this. I've got to really address this. So you could have gone on so.

Many more years, you know, and I could have. And I was, you know, at that point, it was about a nine month journey with trying to get answers. And I was finally told that, you know, there was really nothing wrong and I was probably seeking attention. And it was, you know, I kind of had to pick myself up off the floor after, you know, feeling like that woe is me for a little while. And then I was like, you know what? I just started thinking about the body. Like, what. What does our body do? Our body? You know, most women, we can grow other. We can grow life in our body. We can like Olympic athletes, what they do. Like, I just kept thinking of all the different things we put our bodies through and I was like, there's got to be a way to heal mine. I'm just not finding this is not the right way for me. So I have to find what is going to work and what my body is asking for, because it wasn't asking for all that medication. And that's literally what happened to me when I. The story is quite funny. I was standing in the grocery store one day and I saw Madonna on the COVID of one of the fitness magazines and it had the word Pilates splashed across it. And I was like, what is Madonna doing now? And so I bought the magazine and I read all about this Pilates and it kind of looked like yoga. And so I, you know, there was no Google back then. It was the late 90s. So I went through our civic leisure guide looking for a Pilates class, found one, and that literally is what changed my life.

Wow.

So relate this in your own personal journey and discoveries of how it is that Pilates would address some of your digestive health issues and the pain that you were experiencing. Can you connect those two for us?

I sure can. Because at the beginning, I didn't know. Like, I started doing my math class and my very first experience as the instructor started speaking to me about, you know, taking big inhales through my nose, about, you know, breath and exhaling out of my mouth, it was like, yes, she was speaking English, but it was like she. She might as well been speaking a different language to me because my body was not responding. I didn't know how to take that air in. I didn't. And I think what had happened over the years was even though I was, you know, I was athletic and I was A mover. I just think that my pain actually took my breath away in a sense. And I had to reconnect with my body to be able to give it the gift of breath. Because what I was doing as I was being almost like suffocating from the inside out. What I know now about the body, my sympathetic nervous system, which is our fight or flight. And we all have the two parts right. We've got the sympathetic, which is fight or flight. Then we've got the parasympathetic, which is the rest and digest and in harmony. They should work together. We do need some stress in our life, but mine was just at such a heightened level that I was in flight protect mode all the time. I didn't notice how my heart rate was elevated. I didn't notice that I had this. I couldn't even get breath down into my diaphragm. It stayed kind of, you know, in my neck area. I look back at pictures of myself around that time and I'm. I actually am hiding like I'm. My chest is kind of sunk in and my shoulders are rounded forward and I'm. I'm not a very tall person. I'm only 5 4, but I'm making my. I just looked so. And I think it was because of the pain that I was trying to just manage. And it was through Pilates that finding my breath, it really turned on a muscle called our diaphragm. Now our diaphragm is our main muscle of respiration. And for many of us, when we go and we quote unquote workout, I bet you none of your listeners have ever said in the morning, I'm going to work my diaphragm today. We don't, we're going to do some cardio, we're going to do leg day. We're going to do your Pilates class, your spin class. But no one ever says it's diaphragm day, go right. And what I realized was as I started to work these, these muscles that had not worked for a very long time, other parts of my body started responding. So like my cold, tingly feet started, you know, there was warmth to my hands and feet again. I, you know, my sleep started to change. My, my physique started to change and I would kept, I kept telling myself as my pain was decreasing, I couldn't tell anybody or I would like knock on Wood or all those old little wives tales because I was afraid that if I verbalized that my pain was going away from what seemed to be just this simple form of movement, paying attention to my posture, moving my spine, properly, doing my breathing, organizing my body and moving efficiently, that actually it was changing how my organs were functioning, how my blood was flowing, how my food was being digested. And that's literally what Joseph Pilates, who is the creator of this form of movement, set out to do, was increase quality of life through the health of the spine.

Wow, that's incredible. Our bodies are so intertwined, aren't they? And they so affect our emotions. Right. So connect with us. Also the emotional part, since we're here and we talk about the relational aspects of ourselves to ourselves and others, I can only imagine that this must have really affected your relationship with your then high school sweetheart. Yes.

Yeah. And I mean, I, like, we had been together for long enough and let me just say I actually gave my pain a name. I called my pain my edge because I felt like I had no control over it and that was the only aspect that I did. So I thought if I named my pain, at least I had some control over that. You know, my high school sweetheart, now husband, Jason, was, you know, very obviously very, you know, concerned and, you know, supported me however I needed to. But again, like, those questions of, you know, how will I be able to do what I want to do in this relationship? You know, we were, we were engaged to be married and the same. I mean, we both wanted kids. I was like, how am I going to be the mother to, you know, this amazing man's kids one day if I can't even get myself out of bed sometimes? So, you know, it did. And I think when you're, when you're young and in love like that, you just, you know, there were things that I shared. There were things I was like, I'm just gonna keep this to myself and hopefully it'll work itself out. But I was, I was lucky in that what I, you know, what I did share, I was taken seriously by him. He didn't believe what I was told by other professionals, that it was in my head. And so that was really helpful in my journey out of this pain cycle.

So when you named your pain the edge, did you have conversations with this pain? Was there some dialogue that would go back and forth?

Yeah. And I mean, it was more so like I didn't necessarily talk to it. You guys are going to think, yeah, maybe she is a little off her rocker. I didn't have like, I didn't have like first person conversations with it. But if I was, you know, going into, like I said at that point, I was Starting my first job after university. So if I was going into, you know, an interview or a big meeting or it was. And I would start to feel it, it would just almost be that, all right, there's my edge. I'm, you know, I'm gonna. I'm gonna rock this meeting or I'm gonna land this deal or. So I turned it into that. That it was almost like a piece of me that I needed to make sure that I was, you know, at my best. And that's incredible. Play little tricks on my brain.

Well, and what's amazing in our bodies, our bodies are so full of wisdom, right? They know so much about how things are orchestrated or not orchestrated with inside of ourselves, right? And in our work, we teach that pain is just a signal that says, hey, I need your attention right now. There are some things that we need to address that are not working. And the reason I asked you that question was not to put you on the spot, but I think that if we were to all name things or struggles that we have and have a dialogue with them, we would be amazed at how much wisdom we actually have that they will actually talk back to us. In fact, it's a form of therapy, gestalt therapy. And that's why I was just curious as to. Intuitively, I was impressed that you would think to name it, number one, without any coaching there. And number two, right? These dialogues or these ways that we can turn things like this into an empowering moment with inside of ourselves are so powerful. And our bodies do have so much wisdom to share with us, right? It really is a signal. There is a navigation system with inside of us that help us know, right, if we're going in the right direction or not. And sometimes, not only physically, but emotionally, we tend to ignore that pain, right? We tend to just try and bury it, pretend like it's not happening until it really gets our attention in some kind of a health issue or a mental health challenge or our relationships are blowing up. And so that's so cool that you just intuitively went, I'm going to name this thing, right? Hats off to you.

Thank you. And, you know, I think that sometimes our pain, whether it's, you know, physical, emotional, however you wanted to define it, I think that our pain is often a negative experience because we don't know why it's happening to us. And what I realized is as I was starting to take control over my pain, I was able to have almost like a bird's eye view of what was going on in my body. And Realized that it was my body's way of communicating to me that I needed to, I needed something different. And I just, you know, for me that Pilates ended up being that different. That then was like a snowball rolling downhill. Right. I started to sleep better. You know, I made sure I was properly hydrated. So it was all of these, it was just like the basic building blocks of, of health and wellness. And it's not like I was going through the McDonald's drive thru every day or, you know, like neglecting my health. It was just that when you are and those of you that are listening that maybe are currently in a pain cycle or have been, you know, that it sometimes, it's literally minute to minute and you can't even sometimes have, you know, clarity on decisions or like just the most basic things become very challenging, you know, including our relationships with others and how we see ourselves because it doesn't feel good to be in pain. And you know, we can, we know even sometimes looking in the mirror is a challenge because we don't know what did we do to deserve what was going on in our body or who could possibly love us or who could possibly want somebody that's, you know, damaged goods. Right. Like that's. Those. All those thoughts definitely had gone through my mind at one point.

Yeah, yeah.

Coming from someone that has also experienced a lot of pain. I mean it is, that's very wise, Jenna, to. If we can understand the power and have the courage to turn and face it versus what many of times we often do, maybe even in the beginning of this journey for us is to negate it or push it away or not listen to it. I mean, here's a fun fact, Stacey and I think in all the years we've been doing this for nine years now, when we ask people what's the four letter word that's involved in every single relationship you've been in will be in and it doesn't start with L and no one ever guesses it and.

It'S, it's P A, I, N. You.

Know, pain is going to be part of the journey because it's part of our navigation system. And it is just like you said, right difficult for us to not think of ourselves as broken or right. Damaged goods or incapable of dealing with it. And when we're dealing, I deal obviously with more of the emotional nature of pain and the work that I do. But often before people reach my door, they are struggling with many physical challenges as well because, you know, it's kind of like the chicken and the egg story, which one comes first? Did the physical pain come as a result of the emotions that were not being addressed inside, or were the emotions inside a result of the physical? And I wish we could have more conversations like this. Right. Because I know myself, right. When I've had some digestive issues in my past, we kind of have that in common, Jenna. And I, too, know that when my body gets bound up, I'm emotionally struggling with maybe some anxiety or some. Some things that I haven't digested down emotionally. Right. To take what I need. Just like my body doesn't let the rest go. And we forget that there is this emotional body that also needs to work and operate just like our physical one, where we do have a digestion process of those thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Right. And it is important in our physical bodies that we digest down the things that we intake into it. And then you come in with, you know, your wonderful work of Pilates and working the body and working with the body changes how we feel and the experiences we have inside of our body. And so, you know, that connection has just always been so profound to me, right. To watch the changes on both sides of the fence with our clients. And I bet you see that, too, in your work.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it isn't like the physical body cannot be separated from any of the other, you know, the other pieces. And I think. I think that's one of the big things at just. Even my bricks and mortar business is that we absolutely change all aspects of someone's life. They might come with, you know, a, you know, shoulder injury or plantar fasciitis or something that is, you know, easily diagnosable. But, you know, you start taking them through the experience and the journey, and it actually does. You notice. You notice their language start to change and how they don't talk about that bad knee anymore or that, you know, it's just. It's really cool to see someone come full circle. And that's the strategy that really has been one of the main focal points in, you know, in all the businesses that have kind of come out of this pain experience of mine.

Wow, that's incredible. Well, listen, what I want to do next is dive in and let's actually talk about the pelvis muscles and why it is we need to give them some love. We're going to take a break just a moment, and when we come back, let's dive into that juicy conversation.

Right?

Let's talk about those pelvic muscles that need a little love from us. We'll be right back.

Are you tired of sitting on a couple's counselor's couch and feeling like you're just rehashing the past and making no progress? Do you feel like you're holding on to your relationship but panicked you're losing your partner? It's time to learn how to deepen your connection. Finally resolve the arguments that keep coming up. Understand yourself and your your partner and create the level of intimacy you've been dreaming of. It's time for love to tingle your toes again. Schedule your private session with relationship expert stacey bartley@stacybartley.com checkup do you feel like your love life is on life support? It's time for a turbocharged relationship resuscitation with an alternative to marriage counseling. Head over to staceybartley.com to learn more about their proprietary programs their clients use to save their relationships. S T A C I B A R t l e y.com visit stacybartley.com today.

Ready to learn the most important thing you can do to revitalize your relationship today? Go to stacybartley.com fairydust stacybartly.com fairydust this is the number one thing Stacy teaches her VIP clients that has the power to improve the health of your relationship. Today, learn how sprinkling a little fairy dust in your relationship can stop arguments in their tracks. Rekindle your spark and take your difficult conversations from the struggle bus to easy street.

Do you find yourself attempting to get your point across to friends and family and notice their feelings become hurt instead? Do you tend to feel misunderstood and taken for granted the majority of the time? Instead of listening to others in a conversation, do you find yourself formulating your next response to prove your point? Are you having a difficult time showing up to say anything, but you think about doing it a lot? When we feel like we are being the jerk or the doormat in our relationships, we tend to criticize ourselves harshly. The reality is we've never been taught how to share ourselves effectively with those who we care about and love. Your skills as a salesperson, master negotiator, or expert debater will only lead you into a fight. Matters of the heart require different skills. For a limited time, get half off the regular price of a communications workshop designed to help you gain the understanding and skills you need to navigate through your communications with others, giving you the ability and experience to feel heard, appreciated, and a sense that you matter to the people you care about the most. Get all the juicy details@staceybartley.com communication wherever you go.

Alternative Talk 1150 is here for you.

Foreign.

Hey, welcome back. If you're just joining us, we've been having a wonderful conversation with our guest, Jana Danielson, and we're going to be diving into the conversation of our pelvic health. Right. If you missed it, please come back and listen to it there. We're talking about some great stuff in regards to our bodies and our emotions being interconnected. But let's. With the remaining time that we have. Jana, have you share with us the importance of our pelvic floor muscles and why it is they deserve our time and attention, and then that will transition us into talking about that cooch and gooch ball that we've got to make sure we get in here.

Yeah. All right, so first of all, I always like to start off by saying that men have a pelvic floor, too. It's not just a part of a woman's anatomy because we can have babies. I was actually at a trade show once, and there were these two couples that walked by, and I had, like, my pelvic floor, you know, like just my. My posters up. And one guy says to the other, aren't you so happy we don't have to deal with any of that stuff? And I kind of overheard this, and I was like, what? What? And they were. This one guy's like, well, yeah, like, guys don't have pelvic floors. And I was like, all right, you guys, come on over. We're gonna have a little education here. So men do have pelvic floors, you guys. Really? The pelvic floor from an anatomical perspective is the floor of our core. So when we talk about core strength and we think of our core from a fitness perspective, we think of our abdominals. But what I want to do really quickly here in like 60 seconds, is paint you a picture. And I want you to visualize an apple, and I want you to visualize that you just ate the fruit like the meat of the apple. And the core is left. That literally is a three dimensional shape, just like the core of our body. The roof of our core is our diaphragm. And you heard us talk about that before the break. It's our main muscle of respiration. It's what nurtures the parasympathetic rest and digest. If you can't sleep at night and you're counting sheep, some deep breathing will always be beneficial. The pelvic floor is the floor of our core. And the cylinder is made up of four abdominals, the six pack muscle right under the skin. And then going into the External oblique, the internal oblique, and then the most deepest ab muscle called our transverse abs. This abdominal muscle starts in our low back and wraps around to the front like a corset, like a big weight training Olympic weight training belt. Ok, so our core is actually the shape of a cylinder with a roof and a floor. What people don't realize is that the pelvic floor as the floor and the diaphragm as the roof work together. So if we live with a lot of anxiety or we've had trauma in our life or for lots of different reasons, and we are those what I call the collarbone breathers, and the diaphragm isn't being used as a big muscle, the pelvic floor is going to have dysfunction in women. It can show itself as incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse urge, or frequency with urination, constipation. You know, in men, the same thing, constipation frequency, maybe not emptying the bladder completely when you go to the bathroom, erectile dysfunction, pain during intercourse, and all of these things, everyone can be mapped right back to this group of muscles. And just like you can have a quad muscle that's too tight or a hamstring that's too tight, these muscles can be too tight or too loose. And because of the nerves that live in this part of our body, there's a main nerve called the pudendal nerve, and it actually is a motor supply to the muscles of the pelvic floor. So it's that nerve is what is taking messages from our brain into the pelvic floor, the external genitalia of both men and women. And if we don't treat this as a fitness issue, over time it becomes a medical issue. And you know what happens with medical issues, you guys, they go outside of the realm of our control. But if we redefine this as a fitness issue, I need to stretch a muscle, release some fascia, build strength. All of a sudden it empowers us to want to do something about it. And that's really my frustration with men and women. A, not knowing they have pelvic floors, B, sometimes not knowing where they are, and C, not knowing how to care for them is what really motivated me to find some tool which ended up being the gooch and cooch ball to make. First of all, to have the platform, to have these conversations and then empower people to take action.

I love that. And it's so key as we talk about in our work, you know, the intimacy, right? Sexuality and intimacy is such a huge part of relationships or, you know, we believe that they should be right. They're a normal, natural, healthy part of a very close relationship with another human being. And it's important that. Right. We do everything that we can in order to make that a robust part of our lives as adults. And this pelvic floor issue can absolutely bring in complications to that that prevent us from really being able to experience the levels of intimacy that we are so capable of. And I think that because we don't have these conversations, Jana, which I so appreciate you bringing to the forefront today, is we don't even really know to even look there. Right. That it's just something that's wrong with me. Kind of take. Takes us back to what we were saying earlier. Right. Or maybe, you know, this intimacy thing is just not, you know, maybe I'm just the one that. And we. And we resolve ourselves to not addressing it. So I love that we're talking about this today because we can do something about it which does empower us instead of just finding ourselves in this place of resolve where we feel like we're powerless against it. And again, just kind of give us some ideas, if you would, please. What are some signs that maybe this is something I need to explore for myself, if by chance I'm experiencing these things? Maybe let's take a women first and then let's talk about specifics for men, for sure.

So when you think about the pelvic floor, it's not just like one muscle. It's a series of muscles, and they have different attachment points. And when I was doing some pelvic floor training, I actually built a pelvic floor inside of a red solo cup. So every time. Every time it's like barbecue season, I just think of that pelvic floor training if I'm drinking out of a red solo cup, because it literally is like a bowl. So again, when these muscles are too loose, okay, we call them hypotonic. And when women have hypotonic pelvic floor muscles, they're going to be experiencing again, that pelvic organ prolapse. And a prolapse can happen in different degrees, first degree up to a fourth degree. And there is a point where medical intervention through surgery is going to be necessary. Incontinence, like, you know, coughing or sneezing or going for a run or, you know, jumping on the trampoline with your kids, that that's a telltale sign that those muscles are not doing their job. They're in a state of rest. They don't know what they're supposed to be doing to support the body, hypertonic on the other end. So hyper. Those are muscles that are too tight now. You know, this is going to be where you have that urge, like, you don't have to go to the bathroom. And then the second you put your hand on the doorknob to your house, you have to, like, go now, or it's going to be too late. The frequency where you're like, geez, I just went 15 minutes ago. Why do I have to go pee again? Right? That's common for a hypertonic pelvic floor constipation pain during intercourse. So those are, you know, those women tend to experience those, you know, that you can directly relate to the pelvic floor. You know, men, we know that nine out of ten men dealing with erectile dysfunction, actually, it's a pelvic floor issue, not a medical issue. And it just breaks my heart because I can't even imagine the number of families or businesses or just, you know, relationships that have and how many men feel like their body is not working for them anymore and they feel empty and just hollow inside. And it's not just that they pulled the short straw. It's actually, it's fitness. It's a muscle. And I'm a huge proponent of pelvic floor physiotherapy. It is amazing. Amazing. You don't have to have had a baby or had prostate cancer to have experience the benefits of pelvic floor physiotherapy. But in men, to know that, all you need to do is release those muscles. How can we expect blood flow to get to the penis when the pelvic floor is so tight? Or post prostate cancer surgery when that prostate has been removed and that support for the bladder isn't there? There are ways to teach the body to function in a way that you don't have to be wearing that adult diaper or taking that pill or, you know, using that vaginal suppository. And that, again, those were the things that I was starting to hear way too often, that people just didn't know where to turn for these issues. And then like you mentioned before, Stacy, then there's the issues that we don't even chalk up to pelvic floor. The chronic low back pain, the hip tightness, the shin splints, the cold, tingly feet. Like, those things, you would never think, oh, geez, I should do a pelvic floor release, right? You might be like, oh, I got to get my wool socks, or, I better take Another, you know, over the counter medication to kind of keep that low back pain at bay. So that kind of, that should paint a bit of a picture to our listeners, kind of that it is, it's a global, the symptoms can be very global.

Yeah, well, and, you know, confession time here. Having given birth to five children myself, right. I'll be the first to admit that in my CrossFit class, right, I'm like, oh my gosh, I just, I had to make sure that I urinated before I went to class and then during class and then after class and then, and I myself was contemplating, like, gosh, what am I going to do about this? Right. And before having this conversation with you a couple of months ago through Tom, I didn't even know where to go. I had no idea what to do. I mean, and I would consider myself a runner and I lift weights and, you know, I'm pretty athletic and strong in my body. But that was something that I just thought I was going to have to get good with because what's the remedy? And of course, I've had five kids, so of course that's going to be the case. And how cool it is that after using your ball for a period of time and really not that much time, it's so much better, right? And so that's the glorious thing that I really want to give a shout out to you for is in just a simple tool and a few minutes a day, you absolutely can start addressing exactly what it is you're talking about. So, you know, I love how you say also, Jenna, that it doesn't have to be something that you live with, that there is some things that we can absolutely address and do here, which is really what I want to impress upon our listeners here. If you have any of these things right, before you go to medication or medical procedures, those kinds of things, try this first. Why not? Right? It's, it's not going to do anything but just, you know, see if this works, then hallelujah. Right?

So share with us, Jenna, you know, in our, in our, you know, as we start to bring this episode, you know, down the land, if you will, what it, you know, share with us to the, our listeners, you know, give a nice as you can, as you do so well, a verbal or, yeah, verbal illustration idea. What is a gooch and a cooch ball? Because people think, what the heck is this thing?

Okay, so first of all, I need to just say that just like I named my or our three children, I named this ball with purpose and intention. I wanted to capture people's attention. Cooch and Gooch is such a sassy, fun way to come at this. I wanted to break the ice and have people say what it's called, what? Because that now I have, now I have an opening to educate, right? So it is called the Cooch ball for men or for women, Gooch ball for men. It's a co branded product. So listeners, if you can visualize it's a 5 inch ball and it is, you know, I like to say optimally, you would fill it up 2/3 full. The concept here, you guys, is this. A muscle needs to know when to rest and a muscle needs to know when to work for it to be functional. Doesn't matter what muscle in your body, that's what it needs. Blood flow is our body's natural way of, of bringing nutrient rich, oxygen rich properties to muscles. And they flourish, right? It's like a plant. When you give it sunshine and water and a little bit of fertilizer, it flourishes. Without blood flow, these tissues will not be juicy, they will not be moldable, movable, pliable. They'll be stuck, they'll be like beef jerky. They won't be able to adapt to our movement. Running, picking up our kids, bags of groceries, shoveling snow. They just won't be able to do that. So what I wanted to do was take the concept of, we know the classic foam roller. You roll out your, it bands those fascia on the side of the leg for knee pain or you roll out your quads, that brings blood flow. But my challenge was how do I get that to the pelvic floor? And then this is hence enter the Gooch and Cooch ball. It's a patented product, you guys, for the body. So it's not just a ball that your would kick around or your dog would you play catch with. It's actually built for the tissues of a man's and a woman's body. You sit on the ball and you work up to three minutes a day. You can sit on the floor, on your chair, on your couch or your mattress and it is not going to be comfortable. And the function of the ouch, everyone's going to have a little bit of ouch. The more ouch, the more dysfunction in that area of our body. And the pelvic floor is really important or it really needs that diaphragmatic breathing because that's where the pelvic floor is going to start to work or strengthen. So the ball is kind of beyond the Kegel what you're getting is a two for one deal. You're getting the release of the fascia of the muscular tissue around that area with the weight of your body on the ball. It encourages that fresh blood flow into the area so we can impact change through the diaphragmatic breathing, which is like the Kegel, the lifting and the lowering of the muscle. So that's the beauty. You're getting the strength and the release simultaneously. And I can't even say we all have 180 seconds to invest in our body every day by sitting on this ball. And you'll see over a week, two weeks, three weeks, the discomfort will start to decrease simply because that area is improving in its level of health.

Give us some examples of maybe some people that you've, you've coached and worked with over the years that kind of come to mind.

So, you know, one of my, I've had a lot of, I call them my heartbreaks. But one woman, I will never forget her story. She was a young woman, newly married. She was a teacher, crossfitter, Highland dancer. She came in to start working with me and we started doing some breathing and I started talking about the pelvic floor and she burst out crying. And it was our first maybe seven minutes together. And she, she, you know, she sat up from the Reformer. We were doing a pilates private. And she said to me, I've been married for six weeks. And her words, I let my husband buck, you know, her word for having sex once a week. And she said, I cringe and I hold back the tears for that five minute experience so that I can satisfy his needs to be physical with me. But she said, every second leading up to that, my body is cringing. Every second after it, my body is cringing. And she said, how will I ever, how will my marriage survive this if I don't do something about it? And, you know, we shared those tears and it just, it made me realize that this is, in a sense, it's its own epidemic. Within about six weeks, she started feeling completely different. She moved away from my city, but, you know, she touched base with me. About six months later, she was expecting a baby. Her pelvic floor pain had gone away. Her and her husband were having a very intimate relationship that, you know, she enjoyed just as much as he did. You guys, I've had, you know, girls as young as 13 and 14 that are still kind of wetting the bed, very anxious again, high achievers use this ball. I have men and women in their 90s who are like it just this ball doesn't discriminate between gender or age or ability or. And that's what I love about it. It's just so available to the body, and the body responds. And I just. That's what I love most about the impact that I get to make in people's lives.

Yeah. And you don't realize how, as we talked earlier, you know, supporting my body. Right. In the very best ways that I can absolutely has this throw off in our ability to love to ourselves, others. Our ability to share ourselves with others. Right. It has this incredible throw off that we wouldn't think about. Right. And in the context of just why would we talk about pelvic floor muscles today on a relationship show? Right. And I want to keep bringing that back around, because how we feel in our bodies absolutely directly reflects our relationships with emotionally, ourselves and others. And I love that story that you shared. Thank you so much. And that broke my heart, too. Right. Because you think about that's one person, but how many more are out there struggling with something similar, and they don't know what to do and where to go? Right. And so, gosh, please, you guys share this information. It's. We've got to spread this around because there are things, things that we absolutely can do to improve these experiences with inside of our bodies.

Well, you know, and cannot agree more. And we say in our body of work, you know, you only show up as good as you feel. And talking about as good as you feel this is. I mean, you're bringing it right home to the literal core of what we're talking about here and what Jenna has shared. I mean, this is the essence. I mean, if we can't get this one right, I would say it's going to be a tough journey to have a really close, connected, intimate relationship with our loved ones because we're in so much discomfort.

Yeah, absolutely. And that doesn't need to be the case. Right. And I hope that you can see how this cooch and gooch ball can bring couples closer together. Right. As we work. I mean, Tom and I have been sitting. I mean, I hope that we can share this on there. We've been sitting on our balls together. Right. We'll go out and get our coffee and put our balls on the ground, have a conversation while we're rolling them out, and. And it really does make an incredible difference. So, gosh, I am so sad that it's time for us to start wrapping up our conversation today. Jenna, is there anything that you feel inspired that we haven't touched on or that you would like, to share with.

Our audience today, you know, kind of bringing this full circle. If you're listening and you've been hearing my story and the, the why behind this ball is just remember that when there's parts of your life that feel, you know, I call them the mini tornadoes, when things are spinning out of control, you know, the one thing that you can always connect with is your body, your breath, and just even like just, you know, putting your hands on your heart or putting your heart, you know, your hands on your. On your belly button and breathing into your hands. And it can be very empowering that these small little tools that take really no time, no money, and just, you know, we need to. We need to be in touch in lots of different ways. And so, you know, if it's. If it's not, you know, this is not, you guys, this is not meant to be complex. I guess that's what I'm trying to say is, you know, peel away the layers of complexity that I think sometimes we just feel like our life has to be this big drama and complex story. It really is the simplicity of what my body needs, and it really comes down to movement, breath, hydration at the very base of what we need. And that just plugs right into our confidence, our ability, like both Tom and Stacy have said, to show up not only in our own lives, but in those around us. So I think that's the final thought that I would like to leave our listeners with today.

Oh, I love that we do show up as good as we feel. And, you know, there's so many simple things that we can do in order to show up in our lives more robustly. Right. I love that you've highlighted those basics. Right. Sunlight, connecting with our bodies, breathing. Right. They're in tune. When we get in tune with our bodies, it helps us get. Get in touch with what we call our emotional bodies. And our emotional bodies have so much to share with us. And because they're invisible and fluid and dynamic, I know that can be scary. Right. It's not as easy to manage as the physical body, but nonetheless just as important. But we can start with the body. We can start working with the body, and it leads us right into the emotional sphere of ourselves as well. And this is a great product. I want to invite everyone and Jenna, maybe I can let you do a shout out. You have a couple of wonderful gifts to share with our audience today, and we've made those available on our website@staceybartley.com as part of the show Notes for today's episode. There's a wonderful workshop that you have. Do you want to, want to give a shout out about that? For sure.

Yeah. So I, you know, I'm excited for this. My Pelvic Floor Secrets webinar is what I would like to gift everybody today. It's because you are connected with Tom and Stacy. I'm doing this at no cost. And so it really is. If you're looking for a deeper dive, I just really spell out these three secrets in my webinar and how it leads to a higher quality of life and just being more connected with the body. So I highly encourage, I mean, you might think, how can she talk for another hour about the pelvic floor? But go and check it out because it's different than this conversation. It's going to just be a little bit more, you know, just getting into kind of the nitty gritty of the biomechanics and how simple this part of our body really, really is.

Oh, that's incredible. Well, thank you so much, Jenna, for being here with us and having this very important and empowering conversation with us today. Thanks. We so appreciate you. And thanks to our listeners for listening in. And a huge shout out right to our podcast listeners as well. You can connect again with Janet by visiting our website@staceybartly.com and you'll see in the show notes that not only is the webinar workshop that Jenna referred to, but there's also a link where you can check out the incredible gooch and cooch balls. I encourage you to check them out. Next week on the Love Shack, we're going to have Sherry Richard Buhl, the author of say It Now. She'll be sharing some incredible, simple and easy ways that we can create memorable gifts from the heart this holiday season. And we ask that if you've enjoyed the show today, share it, spread it around. This information is so, so, so important. To close out our show today. Our song of selection is India Iri's strength, courage and wisdom. And as she sings it, she says, gosh, it's been inside of me all along. And that's so true for all of us, too. Have a beautiful week. We look forward to being back here next week week sending you off with extraordinary love. That's it for today. Bye Bye.