My womb healing journey: Reclaiming my feminine power

This week, I experienced my first yoni steam at 45 years old. As I sat with the warm, herb-infused steam rising underneath me, I felt the presence of a familiar ally - a lioness who has been guiding me over the last few months to step into my feminine power.

In moments of deep relaxation, like in the bath or during meditation, she often appears in my mind's eye, a symbol of the fierce, untamed, and protective energy that resides within all women. Her presence during the yoni steam was a reminder of the many practices that have supported me in reconnecting with my womb and embodying my own inner strength.

Overcoming womb health challenges

My own healing journey with my womb space has been a long one. I've struggled with endometriosis, painful bladder syndrome, chronic pelvic pain, PCOS. Thrush twice became chronic and left me feeling ashamed. I've done so much work to release trauma stored here, but as women, we hold so many layers of wounds in this sacred area.

Exploring Holistic Therapies

Yoni steaming is just the latest step in a journey spanning sound therapy, drum journeying, flotation tanks, bodywork, free writing, communing with my ancestors, chanting (and much more!) Healing happens in layers, and it's often the combination of holistic therapies that supports sustainable change.

My first yoni steam

Sound Therapy: Releasing Ancestral Trauma

My accelerated journey began with sound therapy. The vibrations of my Tibetan singing bowls, especially the sacral chakra one, reached deep inside me. As I played the sacral bowl, I felt it in my lower back - the pain of my Nana, my Mum, generations of oppressed Irish women coursing through me. But in that moment, I realised I no longer had to carry their burden. I was free, and my inner lioness began to stir.

The bowl sang again and my lower back crunched open, releasing years of stored tension. Another note, another few inches of my spine unfurled. When I visited my osteopath two days later, she measured me an inch taller! In releasing some of my ancestral trauma, my body released its physical constraints.

Drum Journeying: Connecting with Ancestral Wisdom

Drum journeying took me further, connecting me to my pre-agricultural ancestors in the Scottish Highlands. The beat of the drum vibrates at frequencies that resonate deeply with the root and sacral chakras, our centres of safety, stability, creativity, and sensuality.

These energy centres, located at the base of the spine and lower abdomen, are closely tied to our sense of groundedness, our ability to feel secure and at home in our bodies, and our capacity to create and connect intimately.

By entraining our brainwaves to a theta state, the drum's steady rhythm opens a portal to our subconscious, as well as to our ancestral wisdom. In my journeys, a medicine woman ancestor offered me guidance and support. The drum's resonance with these key chakras allows for a potent connection to our primal roots and the wisdom of our lineage.

Freewriting: Unleashing Intuitive Knowing

Freewriting, the practice of writing continuously without stopping to edit, unleashed ancestral traumas that couldn't be voiced at the time. By bypassing the logical mind, freewriting allows our intuitive knowing to flow forth, revealing both wounds and wisdom, pain and joy. 

Content Warning: The following poem contains themes of hysterectomy and may be triggering for some readers.

Here is one of those stories that flowed through my pen:

Yoni Massage: Releasing Generational Trauma

An internal yoni massage unearthed generational trauma stored in my womb space, particularly on my left side, the feminine. We carry the unresolved experiences of our ancestors in our bodies, even in our DNA, through the fascinating science of epigenetics.

The egg that became me was formed in my mother's ovaries while she was in my Nana's womb, and the egg that became my mother developed in my grandmother's ovaries while she was in my great-grandmother's womb. The traumas experienced by my female lineage left imprints that my yoni massage helped release, making space for my own feminine power to grow.

Flotation Tank and Owl Medicine

In a flotation tank, I journeyed to my womb and encountered a parliament of owls, representing the wisdom to see the shadows. Owl medicine has been powerful over the last few years, helping me to work with my own shadows. Owls, as nocturnal creatures, possess keen vision to see in the dark. They invite us to venture into our own darkness - our fears, wounds, and blind spots - to transmute them and reclaim our wholeness. By working with owl medicine and my womb wisdom, I've learned to meet my shadows and midwife others through theirs.

The TMJ connection: Unlocking the voice of the womb

As I've journeyed deeper into my womb healing, I've discovered the connection between TMJ (temporomandibular joint disorder) and the pelvic floor. Just as I've held tension and trauma in my womb space, I've also held it in my jaw, leading to clenching, grinding, and pain. The jaw and the pelvic floor are intimately connected, both physically and energetically. When one is tight, often so is the other.

Chanting and vocal toning have supported me in releasing this tension and reconnecting me to my womb space. As I chant, I feel the vibrations resonating through my jaw, my throat, my heart, and down into my pelvis. With each tone, I feel my pelvic floor softening, my womb space opening, and my voice growing stronger. It's as if by freeing my voice, I'm also freeing my feminine essence.

In the same way that the lioness roars her truth, chanting allows me to express mine. It's a primal, vibrational form of healing that bypasses the thinking mind and goes straight to the root of our being. Through sounding my truth, I create more space - in my jaw, my pelvis, and my life - for my authentic feminine power to flow.

Tending to the Sacred Womb Space

Our wombs hold not just our personal stories, but the stories of our ancestors and our collective feminine experience. When we tend to this sacred space with a variety of healing arts, we tap into an immense reservoir of power and potential.

My own journey has inspired me to study womb reiki, first for my own healing, and eventually to support others on their paths. Healing ourselves and sharing our gifts with the world are interconnected parts of the same beautiful, spiraling journey.

Holding space

My own healing journey allows me to hold space for my clients. I am in awe of the magic and momentum that unfolds when we commit to our healing, celebrate our sensuality, and reclaim our fierce feminine essence.

The path isn't linear - it spirals, deepens, and expands. But with each healing practice we explore, each shadow we illuminate, we find ourselves a little more whole.

Trusting intuition

My path of growth and self-discovery began when I started trusting my inner wisdom. Some days, I feel the power of my feminine spirit, while other days, I struggle with self-doubt and old patterns.

These ups and downs are part of the natural rhythm of growth and healing. Like the moon and the tides, we are in flux. The key is to keep showing up for ourselves with patience and love, while finding the healing practices that work best for us. Curiosity and an open heart and mind are essential.

Celebrating the journey home to ourselves

As women, when we do this, we become an unstoppable force, as powerful as a pride of lionesses. We can reshape our personal stories, rewrite our ancestral narratives, and come home to ourselves.