Episode 121: Exploring Pelvic Health: A Holistic Approach

Suzanne Noble: I'm very excited to welcome our new sponsor, Higher Nature, who have created Rekindle, which I'm currently trying out and is working a treat. A 100% natural libido-enhancing supplement for women, which contains clinically backed ingredients to give your sex life a boost. And who doesn't want that? Hi, this is Suzanne Noble, and you're listening to Sex Advice for Seniors. We've spoken about the pelvic floor before, but I always think, especially when it comes to being an older woman, you can never have too many conversations about the pelvic floor because there are so many different things that you can talk about when it comes to that. And I'm with a woman today— that's one of the things that we're going to be discussing discussing, amongst others. And she just happens to be a friend of one of my very, very, very oldest friends. So I know that she would not have recommended I speak to you, Sydney, unless you were totally and 100% fabulous. So welcome, Sydney Zwicker, to Sex Advice for Seniors. So tell me, what is it exactly that you're interested in?

Yeah, thank you, Suzanne, for having me. It's exciting to be here and get to get to share all my favorite things to talk about— buttholes, pussy, and sex. I am a woman's hands-on, hands-in pelvic practitioner. So really working with the full body, but kind of a branch of pelvic work. We have like physio and the really direct pelvic floor work, and I use some of those techniques in my practice. But I really work with women addressing the whole body, the emotional somatic, and the physiological, and what's happening. How do we find the adhesion or what's not working in our body, what's not functioning. And sometimes it's not just the pelvic floor, the pelvic diaphragm. Often there's an emotional story, the idea that you can't separate a woman from her story, and how much that comes into our sex life and our life with intimacy, and how they're so interwoven and really creating a new foundation of safety in a woman's body for her to express fully in her sexual and erotic body.

So somebody comes to you, what is it? What, what do they typically— what's a kind of typical story that without going into someone's personal story, but what's a kind of typical story and a reason why somebody would come and see you?

Yeah, well, I see there's like 3 threads that bring a woman to my door, 3 different types of pain points. The first one is a physical. So something is hurting, dysfunctional in my pelvis, usually that's why they see a specialist. A really great one I always say is like bladder incontinence. Whether it's postpartum, you know, many people have bladder incontinence, and we don't talk about it before having babies. And then also, perimenopause can create different shifts in the way that— so incontinence, peeing your pants, the physical piece of I don't want to do it anymore. Some people come to me for the emotional somatic, which I think of as like trauma, whether it's sexual trauma and birth trauma, the trauma of peeing your pants in public, or the spiritual piece, And I say spirituality and like sexuality are like kind of woven together. But that idea of, I don't feel like the woman I want to be, my sexuality is not how I want to embody it. How do I work on a little bit more the esoteric parts of the womanhood? And one of those three threads is usually the pain point that they say, I no longer can live this way. And let me go see someone for this. And the way that I work, we weave all three of them together, because you can't separate a woman from her story and from her spirit. And so with the, with the example of bladder incontinence, like I can, you know, like a physio, we can lift the bladder, we can strengthen the pelvic diaphragm to support the bladder, no matter what you've gone through. And it's not going to hold unless your body and your neurology is going to say it's safe to be held in that space. And so often, especially I think incontinence is a great example, because very quickly goes from being a physical dysfunction to an emotional somatic one, the first time you leak, public. And like, that shame is held in your body as danger, right? Yeah. A stress response. And so every time you go out of the house, you're gonna think it's gonna happen again.

Yeah.

And even if we, again, we repair the physical dysfunction, your body might start to hold tension patterns that bring the bladder back out of alignment and cause more urinary incontinence. And so working through the shame story, unwinding the trauma, whether you consider it a big T or a little t trauma in your life. Yeah, that can help the body hold and really remember that it's safe to be here now and in alignment. I really believe the body is not out to get us, but that how was it the ways that it holds contraction that create dysfunction in the body? How does it do that? Is it a way of protecting us for something that it feels is a bigger danger, and really reorienting it to safety and present time because our animal brain does not think in linear time. It's death or no death. And so how do we start to bring that back together and working with women really slowly to reintegrate parts of themselves that are lost in the daily life of being a woman in the modern world?

Yeah, and, and I know that with incontinence, especially as you say, it can happen at various points in our lives. And the natural response to that, of course, is clenching, isn't it? I mean, it's just, you think, if I'm not gonna leak, I'm gonna clench. And then continued clenching, I suspect, causes pain because it's a, it's a, it's a contraction of the muscle that's not given any release. It's just continuously contracting to stop something which, as you said, causes shame. And Generally, it sounds like it's quite a hands-on process that you're, you're working with these women. So I'm guessing they're doing some exercises around that alongside— is it like a massage technique? Or more like a, you know, working with what is— how, how exactly does it manifest itself?

Yeah, so it really depends. Like, I work with both women online and in person. I work with women all over the world. Because not everyone can fly.

I'm in Denver, Colorado.

In the States. And it's a mix of both. When I'm in person with clients, it's a mix of different bodywork techniques. So there's physio-like techniques we use, there's osteopathic techniques we use, as well as somatic coaching or like trauma therapy integration. So we're talking as we're doing the work together and having you visualize things. It really depends on each person and how their nervous system integrates. But really using the felt sense to understand and start to create new neural pathways in what our brain is interpreting, and what our tissues are. And the way I think about it is if you think of our skin as part of our brain, it's part of our nervous system, it receives the information of safety. Why I think this work is so powerful, and obviously I'm biased, is that through touch, so whether we're working directly on the genitals, or working on the belly or the head, that also can have those pieces like bringing in really gentle touch, if I'm holding your bladder, so through the belly, we can hold the bladder, and then starting to breathe and bring that awareness, I'm bringing touch and physical sensation to your bladder, as well as then we're thinking about it, we're creating new neural pathways through that, I'm giving information of safety, your bladder, like, it's okay, you don't have to pee right now. And if you do, we work with that. And so that piece of its hands-on techniques, plus visualizations and a lot of, like, neurofeedback pieces that are integrated into a session. And then when I work virtually with someone, I'm teaching you how to touch your own body and bringing you into the body that way and different, again, massage techniques or physio techniques, osteopathic techniques of touch while we're doing the same work. And so you're holding yourself instead of me holding you. But it's super powerful to have that kind of practice.

And I'm curious to know, does— because obviously there's a lot of older men who experience incontinence through prostate surgery especially. And do you work with men as well, or is it just women?

I do. I mostly work with women, and I will work with a very specific type of man. I say one who has a lot of emotional maturity and communication skills already. Otherwise, I will refer them out to a basic physio. What the difference in my work versus physio is, often a physio is doing something to you. Yeah, the way that I work is with non-agenda touch. And so we're really working with the story piece. And there are men who have amazing emotional capacities and have done some healing work. And there are many men who don't know how to process working without sexuality while touching the genitals unless it's medical. And this touch doesn't always feel medical, because we're really processing through things. And so The men I work with are like a very specific breed of man who wants that next level and is curious about processing, like, how am I holding, you know, the stress of being the breadwinner? How am I holding my stories around what it means to be a man through my pelvic diaphragm, through my butthole often, and creating that dysfunction, right, creating that lack of blood flow, which can create, you know, disease and illness in the prostate. Yeah, so much is connected there. And so, yes, and I think men need this work. And I spent the beginning part of my career— I've been doing this for about a decade— specializing in women and like, you know, offering it occasionally to my clients' partners and things like that. And it's only been the past year and a half or so that I've really started opening my doors to more men. Because there's a need here. And I'm finding that men are coming into doing psychosomatic work and touch work in a really different way and are able to hold that. I think our culture has really changed post-COVID of men showing up to want something different versus wanting to be fixed.

Yeah, for sure. And I think also that, you know, from the men that I know, they, they struggle post-surgery with readjusting to this body that's not completely penis-centric. Right? And they have to relearn how they can work with their body in ways that they didn't before. So for me, I think it is quite important. I, I recognize that there is a different agenda sometimes, but I suspect it's quite important for a lot of guys to be able to relearn that so that they can still experience pleasure, so that they can stop feeling a sense of shame around perhaps, you know, feeling inadequate, whatever's going on for them. But I know that, that, you know, that is a thing.

So yeah, it's so important to talk about it and to normalize it for men, how important all the layers of this work is. I would say when people come to see me, I'm not your first stop in the pelvic healing journey or trauma healing journey. And that's the piece that like, I work with men who are ready for level 2 or 3 or 4. Some people think my level is level, like the endgame level, which is true. Like I definitely say it's advanced work at times. It's simple. But that nervous system piece, can you— what I'd say is like really important, both with men and women, is there's a lot of transference that can happen if you think about working with a therapist, right, doing trauma therapy. And then we're adding in touch. And that piece of, I think, especially with heterosexual men, the inner culture doesn't hold a space for there to be intimacy without sexuality, especially when we're touching genitals. Whereas for women, it can be a little bit different. We have a more nuance because our the physiology of our sexuality is different, right? I always say when I work with men, like, there's no elephants allowed in the room. One of the main things we're doing is we're bringing blood flow and lymphatic flow to your pelvis, which is going to heal the physical pieces. Blood flow to the pelvis is how an erection is created. And so like, if an erection happens, and it can happen, I have it, I'd say it's 50/50 in a session because of the way we work. If it happens, like, there's no shame. We're not going to do anything about it. It's the non-agendas. We're not stoking that fire, and really being able to work through of even when like I'm holding your body with presence and compassion and intimacy and listening to you and touching your penis. Or, you know, have a finger at the opening of your anal sphincter, because that's where— or your perineum. And how do we understand that my presence does not mean I want to fuck you? And I think that's a story that's very hard for— I mean, I think for everyone I work with, both with women, if I tell the story of when someone comes up to you, you know, if you're working at your computer or your desk, and you're hunched over like a gremlin, and, you know, a friend or partner comes up and like rubs your shoulders because you look like gremlin-y, your first thought is they want to fuck me. No. But if someone comes up and is holding the tension in your pelvis or near your genitals, we automatically go to the story, which is cultural, that somehow they must mean— this must mean they want to fuck me. And so really unwinding that piece to be like my lane in the pelvic healing world. And there's tantricas who do it, you know, really work with the erotic differently, or PTs who don't have— it's very medicalized. This non-agenda space is really how do we stay present here for what is, to feel it all, both if you have the expansive sensations that can sometimes feel like pleasure, or the contractive ones that feel like pain. Whether it's in your physical body or your emotional body. And really, that presence for me is how we develop, shift, and change with our body, because most people are quite dissociated from this part of the body. We only interact with it in the sexual or the medical, and that is, I think, where a lot of disease comes from.

Yeah. And I think, as you said, I have a friend who spent a considerable amount of time doing this thing called Touching Naked Men. And it was literally just about this desire that she had just to connect via touch not necessarily in a sexual way with naked men, but they came to her as they would a sex worker, and she had to explain to them, no, no, I'm not here to do that. I mean, if something happens, okay, but that's not the, that's not the endgame of this. The endgame of this is connecting with your body, you connecting with your own body, and that, and she said for A lot of people, men, that was really difficult to separate this. Someone is touching me just in a lovely, gentle way from when am I going to get off, right? Yeah. And it was eventually she, she stopped doing it. But the stories that she tells me about the men who came willing to kind of embrace this idea just of being touched were mainly people who were missing touch. They weren't— of course, they were, they were missing lots of things. But what they were missing was physical connection. They were missing touch. They were missing that, that feeling when somebody just touches your skin.

Yeah, I think we live in a culture now that is especially post-COVID, deeply, deeply skin hungry. And I think it's the reason why there is so much sexual violence sometimes in the world is we're not talking about what that means. And really, we don't have, especially in the English language, enough words to describe different types of intimacy. And we get very confused, especially when it comes to the pelvis and like the genitals, the difference between intimacy and sexuality. And I always say that, you know, the erotic is a type of energy. It's, you know, in Tantra world, it will be called, you know, more of our vitality or life force energy. But the erotic is just a type of energy like the platonic. Right, like the familial, it's just a type of energy. And the sexual is the erotic with a story. And our stories in our culture are often quite contractive and shame-built. And that piece of how do we bring like physical intimacy can— doesn't have to involve sexuality or sex, the sexual, it can just involve that presence. And with anywhere in the body, anywhere in the body can be erotic. When we bring that presence and what that intimacy that we're all craving. And when I do a lot of like sexuality coaching for couples, or teach like sex ed workshops, the big piece is like, how do we differentiate the longing we have, or the feeling of lack that we have in our relationship of— we're all looking for intimacy. 90% of the time, it's intimacy that people are feeling longing for. But they keep calling it the sexual. Because they don't— we don't have the communication, we don't learn what intimacy really feels like, and that is presence. And we can't tolerate it. Many people can't tolerate it. We have to take a step back when we actually are met with true intimacy.

Yeah, and I think, well, I think it's mainly because we've never been taught how to deal with that. So, you know, most— I was brought up with the belief, if you don't— what was— what did my mother say? If you don't ask, you don't get, right? That was my mother's mantra. If you don't ask, you don't get. So I, I've kind of embodied that in every aspect of my life. Like, if I want something, just ask for it. It's in a sexual way, in a non-sexual way. It's just like, if that's not going to work for me, this is what I need you to do. So, you know, but, but another, you know, there's a whole nother generation of people that were brought up with silence is golden. And, you know, and it— and speaking up is bad, right? So they, they've got to unlearn all of this stuff to to get what they want. And therefore, getting intimacy, getting close to somebody where you're actually revealing your actual self can be horrifyingly scary, right? Because, because we've been told that revealing who you truly are can lead to— can be a disaster, right?

Yeah, and leads to abandonment, and that our needs, especially as women, I find that our needs are somehow subpar. And I remember even in like my sex ed, like a story that really I held in my body through my early 20s was somehow that boys knew better about sex than I did, or about my body, because male sexuality is all you see in the media and in our culture. And it took me a while to realize like, oh, you have no fucking clue what you're doing either. I actually know so much better how to get myself off than you do. And I can share that with you. But that place too of then also with men and with boys, like that idea of how do we communicate about it without shame? How do we communicate that that's actually not working for me? Like, the clitoris is more than just a button. And you know, that's not where it's located. Or all of those pieces without building shame and building as like the true intimacy is like we're co-creating an exchange of the erotic right now. And like, most people go into a sexual encounter wanting to both receive and give to the highest capacity for that person with a place of like, most people don't go in there just to take, I would say, in mo— like, I truly believe the best in, in humans in that kind of interaction place. And, and the harm comes from not knowing differently and not knowing how to communicate this is not working for me. And when I work with women, a lot of what I do, especially when their intention is to explore more of their erotic or sexuality, And in the rites of passage, when that shifts, right, especially the perimenopause-menopause shift, your erotic energy does change when you move out of your fertility years. And how to get to know that is getting to know it yourself. And for many people, listening to like a tantrika podcast about like just touch pussy doesn't do it for them. There's so many stories they have to work through to get to that place. And what is really powerful about doing non-agenda, non-sexual work first is We're just noticing all the sensations, which means we get to move through the contractive ones, our fear, our shame, the grief that it's not working the same way it used to. And, and then from there, starting to track in the body, expansive sensations, and knowing that, oh, I like— okay, this feels really good. It's not erotic right now, because the context is what makes something— or it's not sexual because the context And but I can track more of that. And I can ask for more of that and starting to be able to speak up in a container where there's no risk, right? You're with a facilitator, like, I don't care, like, we're moving with your body, my agenda is to support you, versus a partner where if you say something doesn't work for you, there's risk of harming and then having to emotionally process with them, which can feel like labor for many women who do most of the emotional processing in the relationship.

Yeah.

And so having spaces of which we get to practice having that kind of smush energy come up of like, I need to say something, and being able to practice saying it and then not dying. Because that's what their animal body is thinking really helps when you can track that sensation of, oh, this is what it feels like when I'm starting to dissociate, starting to get a little frustrated, not in a good kind of edging way, but in a like, fuck you for not getting it right way. And like, we get to track that physical sensation in the body. We get to work with the emotion. And we get to move it to a place where now your brain knows the full cycle of that. And you can actually use your voice better in, in the moment with your partner when the erotic is, is in that space. And I think that's the really powerful thing is it takes practice. Communication is a practice. And the idea that you somehow you come out of the womb and can have rupture and repair conversations like that is It's crazy. And the sexual space is a place that has so much rupture because of all the projections we hold because of our culture that is so sex negative. And so having the capacity to have repair conversations, to move through and share that rupture happened in your system. I think for so many women and men, we don't share the rupture that happens. I work with both men and women about feeling like just a meat slab for their partner, both men and women of like, You know, how do I move through that story for me? Because most of the time, your partner is not wanting to make you feel that way. There's many things in the environment that are bringing in that sensation. And to move through that and communicate about it and to create a new level of safety, which creates deeper levels of intimacy, which makes us feel like our needs are being met. And all of a sudden, we're having the sex life we want, even if none of the actions are changing, the way we're present in it changes. And that really is what I think creates the sex life that most people desire, that they feel that they're lacking.

Yeah, and what I heard you saying really resonates with me is that as women, we experience multiple changes in our body. And sometimes we grieve, even though it may not be physically apparent, of the way that we used to be. And as we move through these changes, the way we are now, and we have no ability to process that, in a way that delivers us into a good place. So all we're doing is we're hanging on to what we had before, 'cause that felt good. And we don't know how to get to the new place that's also going to feel good. And I know it's a lot of, I spend a lot of time with people that I know telling them, look, you can get to a new place that can work, but it requires releasing whatever hold you have on that old place whatever that meant for you, which was generally about like, you know, orgasms that just popped off very quickly and, and just, you know, kind of a much easier way of doing things and feels like as you move through later life, things just might take a bit more time, you know, and you might have to accommodate that or different feelings or sensations either going on or not going on in your body that you might have been used to before and now no longer present. So I think having somebody that can kind of help women navigate that. I also think, by the way, a lot of this goes on for men too. It's just, it just, it just doesn't get expressed probably as often because we're hearing a lot about the menopause these days. So we're hearing a lot more about, you know, the challenges that women have to overcome in the menopause. But, you know, men, men also have shit that goes on with them. So it's not, they're not completely immune from all of this. But I think that, you you're right, it is about how do we reconnect with, with ourselves. I also read something the other day that really did strike a nerve with me, which was that sometimes our— and it's something that you kind of referred to about— you thought as a woman that boys knew better when you were learning about sex. But it wasn't just that boys knew better. It's that sex was primarily for boys.

Yeah, right.

Yeah. So we are basically just receptors and boys are the, are the, are the, you know, the givers, right? And, and we're just, we're just the receptors. And so all of there's, there's a sort of sub, you know, there's like a thought that goes on, which is that actually we haven't really got a lot of women just have never developed the vernacular around pleasure, full stop. They just— because sex was always for, for boys, boys who knew better, right?

Yeah, I think that's a big piece of it too. And just going back to the part you're talking about, like perimenopause and menopause, is I— in most cultures that respect the wise woman or the elder or the crone, their journey is like the symptoms you can see in the population is so different than especially with the West that really pathologizes and shames, like you're useless once you're in this age.

Yeah.

And I think that adds the layer of the sexuality story for many women. But in many cultures, and some of them are Eastern cultures, and some of them are ancient cultures that no longer exist, but traditional cultures that really honor, honored the crone. The crone is one of the most highly erotic phases of womanhood. And that idea of like, the depth of it and the few wise women I have in my life, who have been through that journey, and really took the space to go through the death portal that is menopause and that rite of passage. Because I think there's very few women who are doing it right now in that way of really honoring it as a rite of passage. And I'm excited to have elders in my life who can show me the way when I get to that place, but that are finding such deep eroticism and like, that you can't even imagine from that space and what eroticism looks like in the chapter of the crone or of the wise woman. You know, we, we evolved to have menopause. I don't know if you've talked about like grant— I think it's called grandmother theory. But humans are one of, I think, 5 species that have a menopause. I think there's like 3 types of whales, elephants, and humans, and evolving into having a phase of females that don't reproduce like that. And if you think of evolutionary biology, that's a pretty useless use of a life to not be able to reproduce young unless there's a bigger purpose for that. And that purpose is to educate and to teach and to take care of the young, for like, take care of the younger generations. And that piece of— I really believe that, you know, the eroticism is part of what would be taught. The eroticism, the embodiment, the aliveness is taught through grandmother wisdom. And the idea that somehow, you know, a lot of people say that menopause is, you know, women become useless because we weren't living that long, weren't living long enough to go through menopause. And I think that's bullshit. I think it's the big piece here is finding reverence for all parts of the continuum of womanhood. And in that, all parts of eroticism of womanhood and really changing that narrative and how you think of yourself as a woman, you know, post-menopause.

And there's some scientific evidence that I read recently about why menopause exists in humans, which I can't quite remember at the moment. But there is actually scientists have queried why, why is it that women go through menopause? Why don't we just like basically die right after we have kids or after we're no longer have the ability to procreate? What is the point of going through that transition in life? And is there an actual purpose for that transition, which apparently there is now scientific evidence that there is an actual reason for that purpose, which may have something to do, if I'm right, around, like you say, being able to look after the young, you know, some sort of continuation in that way and other aspects of menopause that mean that we are still relevant because the purpose of this investigation was, are menopausal women relevant, right? Which for a long time it's like, well, they're not procreating, so how are they still relevant? And in a, on a biological level, but there is actually now evidence that there's a reason why we have menopause and there's a reason why we're still around and there's a reason for, you know, there's actually a purpose for, for this whole transition in life. So I'll try and dig that out if I can, because I thought it was really interesting.

But, you know, the things I think about that, that piece of it, right, if you think physiologically, like ovulation is a huge energetic tax on the body, it's one of the most violent things that the body does to itself. And that energy use, like, women and, and I would say females, as, you know, humans as mammals, are meant— if there's that age of like growing to be the teachers, right? To stop that energetic physiological tax allows women to live longer. And you know, why in our species would women be like, would the females live longer than men? Like men never end that energetic tax. It's different on their body. And that piece of— for me, I don't know if it's the same thing from this study, but that the pieces that I've read into is we go through menopause, we change our hormonal impact of our body, our physiology, to be able to live longer and support the tribe and be the leaders and the educators for the future generation so we can survive. Our tribe survives better if we have the wisdom of the older generations and how they figured out survival. And so thinking of it a bit more in like caveman terms in the evolutionary biology world of not ovulating, which you need less estrogen to create that new chemical process, right, is what helps us live longer as women. And when we start to really think about living longer, not as a death sentence in this, in this old useless body, or no longer relevant body, but as part of the expression of the wisdom and expression of the erotic can be a part of that too. Yeah, completely.

I completely agree with that. And I think, you know, for, for a lot of women is— I don't necessarily agree that older is wiser, because I know that that's not necessarily true. But I do know that when we accept the changes in our body, and we grow into those changes, and we learn how to adapt to them, that fundamentally, we are much happier people because no point in fighting against the inevitability of change that occurs in later life because it's a complete waste of time. Although, of course, some, some, some people, plastic surgeons, are making a fortune off of that particular industry.

But generally, we could have a whole podcast about— if you're thinking about getting labiaplasty or liposuction, I just— oh my Go look at on a YouTube video what it does to your body, how fucking violent it is. It's not just like, oh, we're just gonna go in there and grab some fat. It's literally pulverizing your flesh. And if you think about the body as sacred, how much that will fuck up the whole system of your body and creates the prolapses, creates the disease, creates the lack of libido and hormonal stress. Like, there's so little consent in the plastic surgery world of what it means to cut things out and I'm not anti-Western medicine. I think it has a purpose and a place and is really powerful when needed. And the amount of unneeded surgeries, unneeded hysterectomies that are happening because we're like, well, your womb is useless to you. And that's just not true. Your womb has like such an importance in the structural safety of your body, of the longevity of your life. What the ovaries do post-menopause is really important. And all of those pieces, women with prolapses and everything else, It's coming because we're saying it's useless and that organ is really important in your body for—

Well, and also, you know, I mean, I was going to go into a whole different discussion. We're kind of reaching the end of my 30 minutes that I'd like to stop at. But I was going to say we should have another conversation because we— I haven't really done too much on it around the impact of hysterectomies because I'm seeing it occur more and more amongst women that are not very old. And I know that in some cases, of course, it may be absolutely necessary, but I don't think that enough women are warned of the risks when having a hysterectomy. And I certainly have been told, you know, many, many things about the— how, as you say, how shocking it is to your body post-hysterectomy. I mean, it's, it's it's very, very— it can take ages to recover. And in some cases, it can cause irreparable damage, which I've, you know, I have seen that through, through friends of mine and people that I know and what they tell me. So I think there's so much around that, but we can't— we're not going to go into that today.

I'll just say one piece of that part is that I think anyone who has some sort of physical pain point in their pelvis where they've been told their only option is like, we'll just take out your uterus, Yeah, is that we are such a disembodied culture that sometimes the only option is to, yes, take out your uterus. Cancer is one of the things that is really hard, but the body's whispering. And there's so many things— endometriosis, PCOS, fibroids— all of those things that can be sometimes not fully repaired if they've gotten to a certain, certain spot of ignoring your body and the whispers and the screams. But so much of that is a bigger systemic problem that taking out your uterus is not going to solve. It just creates more scar tissue. And how do we start to— there's so many different ways to start to bring the body back into alignment and heal some of those big women's problems like endo and PCOS and, and fibroids. And how do we really start to look at the whole picture and put in the work? It's going to be work. Doesn't mean it has to be easy, but the work of self, self-responsibility. And by knowing the consequences of what removing that organ from your body does to the longevity of your life and the, and your lifestyle.

Completely.

I mean, a lot of women I know, or that I hear and I see on the internet, who are counting down the days with excitement to take out their uterus because their period is something that bothers them, is— it's really fucking disturbing. And I have compassion for being in that place and not knowing better and not having other options and being told that this is normal, like, deal with it. Our system is broken. And, you know, why do I do podcasts? Why do I do this work? Is to bring whispers that I truly believe that when we as women take back our health in our own hands and find the ways to really work that and take the accountability of how much we've accepted ease over and convenience over presence, we can really change the long-term, the long-term existence of being in a female body and living a really full and vital life.

If we, if all of this stuff is about, is about preventing illness, preventing pain, it's about, as you say, everything that we talk about really is about listening to what your body is telling you. And instead of running for medication, figuring out what alternatives are. I mean, unfortunately, some of that is expensive and it's not covered by the National Health Service for the most part. And so unfortunately, it falls to mainly privileged women who are able to afford to be able to actually spend the time and have the time to be able to invest in the work. And I suspect for a lot of women, it's literally about, I don't have the time. This is being offered to me for free. And you know what, I'm going to take this. Right? Instead of, um, let's try something different. I'm going to send you off to an alternative health practitioner. Let's give you 3 months with that person and see how you fare. And if you're still in excruciating pain after that and you're really feeling like you're making no progress, then let's come back and review where you are and see if this is the best option for you. Right. That—

I just think the education beforehand of until it's not at a place where, you know, I think time and you're exactly the privilege of being able to touch your body, have the time for that. And really, how do we support women as a system and that community medicine of really bringing it back to understanding your body, right? If we had more education on understanding our body, understanding the female physiology, we wouldn't be in a lot of these places.

And, and getting to know your most loving kids, you know, like, it has to start, as we said, at the very beginning of this conversation, your experience of boys know better, that just, that just kind of really sums it all up because we don't, we don't receive the education early in our lives that can support us to a place where we don't need to worry about having hysterectomies and our uterus pulled out, you know, but sadly we're not there yet.

Yeah.

Anyway, it's been wonderful to chat to you and I'm so glad that Laura made the introduction. We'll have to have you back on to probably have a whole nother discussion.

Sounds beautiful. Thank you, Suzanne, for so much for your time, and it's been lovely to chat with you.