Reclaiming Your Body: Restoring Pelvic Health After Trauma
Your body remembers what your mind sometimes wants to forget. After sexual trauma, many survivors experience pelvic health challenges that can feel isolating and overwhelming. Sexual dysfunction, chronic pain, muscle tension, and difficulty with physical intimacy are common responses to trauma, and they're reasonable reactions to what you've endured.
The pelvic floor doesn't just hold our physical structure; it holds our sense of safety, power, and connection to ourselves. When that sacred space has been violated, the muscles often respond by clenching, protecting, and guarding against future harm. This hypervigilance, while once protective, can create ongoing physical and emotional challenges if not properly addressed with care.
But here's what I want you to know: healing is possible, and you have more power than you might realize.
Holistic approaches to pelvic health recognize that trauma lives in the body, not just the mind. Traditional talk therapy, while valuable, sometimes can't reach the places where trauma gets stored in our tissues and nervous system. This is where somatic therapies, such as Havening Techniques®, might come in handy.
Havening Techniques use gentle touch combined with visualization and distraction to help process traumatic memories stored in the body. By activating healing delta waves in the brain, Havening can help break down trauma patterns and create new neural pathways associated with safety, calm, and even pleasure. For pelvic health specifically, this can mean releasing chronic muscle tension and rebuilding a sense of bodily autonomy.
Other holistic approaches might include pelvic floor physical therapy with trauma-informed practitioners, breathwork, gentle yoga, or somatic experiencing. Each person's healing journey looks different, and what works for one survivor may not work for another, and that's perfectly okay. Exploration is part of the process.
Reclaiming your relationship with your body is an act of courage and a movement towards taking your power back. Every small step you take toward healing- whether it's trying a new therapy, setting a boundary, or simply listening to what your body needs- is a victory worth celebrating.
You survived something that should never have happened to you. Now, you get to choose how you want to heal with gentle guidance from professionals who genuinely care. Your body is not broken; it's been protecting you. With the right support and empowered persistence, you can help it learn to trust again.
Written by Dr Megan Mansfield, Clinical Psychologist and Havening Techniques-Certified Therapist. If you’re ready to begin your journey or have some questions about the process, schedule a time to talk with Dr Megan here.