Do you leak when you lift? Are you afraid you're making your prolapse worse? Here's a simple strategy!

Hey there!

I LOVE teaching women how to lift heavy things, but I ESPECIALLY love teaching them to LEVERAGE their breath and power to accomplish any physically challenging task.

You see, your breathing cycle is more than just about getting oxygen into your lungs (to oxygenate your tissues) and getting carbon dioxide (expired air) out, it’s part of your body’s natural ability to MANAGE PRESSURE.

Do you struggle to manage pressure?
Here are some clues that you might:

• You leak when you exercise (sneeze, cough or laugh too)

• You see bulging or doming in your core when you exert yourself

• You hold your breath and brace to feel strong when lifting something

• You feel pressure in your vagina after a long day or exercise session

• You have chronic low back pain and feel loose in your core

While learning to manage pressure is a concept that is covered IN DEPTH in my upcoming course, Connect Your Core and Pelvic Floor, today I am showing you some breathing cues to help you perform deadlifts AND kettlebell swings withOUT bearing down on your organs to brace yourself and feel strong in movement.

Check it!

Training with kettlebells can either help OR harm your core and pelvic floor. It all comes down to how you manage pressure and move your body. Check out this video on how to breath during the deadlift AND kettlebell swing!

To PRE-REGISTER for my Connect Your Core And Pelvic Floor course and have access to DISCOUNT pricing, complete the form below!

Prolapse symptom increase, WHAT TO DO??!!

Increase in prolapse symptoms? 

Don’t freak out!!!

Read this.

Hey there!

I know ALL TOO WELL how frustrating and fear-inducing an increase in prolapse symptoms can be. 

“Did I make it worse?”

“Are my organs going to fall out”

“What was I doing wrong?” 

are ALL questions that have crossed my mind MANY times. 

What I’ve learned over the years is that:

1. Increase in symptoms does NOT necessarily mean a worsening of your prolapse.

2. An increase in symptoms can teach us something about our bodies. 

3. Sometimes it’s nothing and it passes with no good explanation.

my tips for dealing with an increase in prolapse symptoms!

Check your pelvic floor tension. 

If you have prolapse, chances are good that you have a history of not recruiting your pelvic floor enough, so I know it’s difficult to imagine, but you actually might be OVER-RECRUITING your PF. 

Before you are convinced that your prolapse is getting worse, either see your pelvic floor PT and have her check your pelvic floor muscles, MAYBE do some internal release of those muscles, or if you know how, use your thera wand to do it yourself. 

Here’s a video on that.

Pay attention to your bowel movements AND if you’re still menstruating, your menstrual cycle.

Even if you’ve been having regular bowel movements, are you sure that everything is coming out?
There have been times when after I use the Thera-wand for some release or some Moxibustion (that I ordered through my acupuncturist), a lot of waste, that apparently was hanging around for too long comes out and I have felt to much better!

Other times, a build up of gas from controversial foods or too much fiber has made everythgin feel swollen and uncomfortable for both me and my clients .
So there’s that too. 

When our period is approaching, peristalsis (contractions that move your food waste through your intestines) can slow down which can result in constipation for some women, not to mention that our hormones during ovulation or right before menstruation can ALSO make us more symptomatic. 

Check your digestion and check your calendar to see where you are in your cycle. 

It absolutely could be that!

What about your stress/breathing and movement lately?

It is NOT uncommon for many of us Type A personalities (Hi!) to process our stress by clenching our bellies, tucking our tailbones or tightening our pelvic floors. 
When is the last time you took some time for you and breathed with your diaphragm?

When I start feeling like this-and it happens often, so I’m better at recognizing it, I do some Original Strength resets, PARTICULARLY rocking and rolling because they are such SOOTHING movements. 

I also focus on my breath-more on that here. 

I may even do some belly massage. 

And what about your alignment and movement?

Check those ribs. Are they down? 

Is your pelvic position mostly neutral?

Are you focusing on your inhale/relax your PF and intently as you do your exhale/lift?
If you’re like, “What is she talking about?” or “I need help with this!” grab my freebie on the topic: here.

And then there are always a WHOLE host of other things you can explore with respect to diet, liver health, sleep and more!

If you want to learn about THAT, check out my upcoming Gut Health for Pelvic Health course!!!

The bottom line?

Once you have prolapse, you always have prolapse.
It’s a vulnerability in your body and mine.
Your prolapse may become symptom-free, undetectable and you may never notice it.
Perhaps your symptoms come and go randomly, or it may be that it persists, but you learn lots of ways to manage it.

The reality is that there’s a LOT about the body, hormones, inflammation, muscles, ligaments and the nervous system that we are still learning, so while there may not be a perfectly OBVIOUS cause and effect relationship between your symptoms and something else that is taking place in and around your body right now, we may one day soon discover MORE branches of the body and lifestyle that impact prolapse symptoms.
In the meantime, if you experience and increase in symptoms, try my recommendations above, do the things that typically make you feel best and give is a little bit of time.
These things happen sometimes.

Managing prolapse is LARGELY a mental process, but I’m here to HELP you!!
Amiright??!!

Before you freak out that this is your new normal, throw in a pessary-if you have one, to give you an extra lift, make an appointment with your PT to get checked and go do something that makes you HAPPY!

Sarah Smith is on a mission to help women conquer their pelvic health struggles and build STRENGTH and SKILLS!
She is a strength coach, RKC2 Kettlebell Instructor, Original Strength Pro Instructor, certified personal trainer, postnatal fitness specialist and pelvic floor and gut health advocate with a Masters in Soil and Agricultural Science.
Sarah works online and in Raleigh, North Carolina. 
She is a Believer, wife to her best friend, Jeremiah, a mom to three boys and one English Bulldog.
She loves soil, coffee and not folding laundry. 
Come follow her on Instagram or Facebook.

Zooming out from our health problems to get perspective, answers and real solutions!

I'm sort of on a roll this week with blogs posts and emails, but I have so many things that I want to share with you, that I sort of can't even help it!

Today I want to chat briefly with you about perspective. 

In the West, our healthcare system is largely one based on treating symptoms. 
We experience a problem in a specific part of the body and both we and our healthcare providers often problem solve as if the problem originated in said part.
Consequently, the treatment is solely focused on this one area. 



For example, if you go to the doctor with persistent knee pain, they will typically recommend you:
take an anti-inflammatory,
wear a knee brace, 
receive steroid shots to the knee
and if all else fails, get knee surgery. 


But ALL of theses solutions are about STOPPING the uncomfortable symptoms that are coming from the knee, which is in actuality a RESPONSE to other issues taking place in the body. 


Anything from the hips, to the ankle, toes, pelvic floor or head position....
diet, stress management, shoes, movement habits and lifestyle...
is IN FACT OFTEN behind the knee pain, but we are often so ZOOMED in on the location of problem and consumed with stopping the symptoms that we fail to realize that the knee's current state is not because of the knee at ALL, but due to many other factors. 




I see this same problem a LOT with the pelvic floor. 
I receive emails and DM's all of the time from people that had prolapse corrective surgery and how find themselves having symptoms again. 


This is because the surgery only took care of the symptoms of a larger problem of strength, stability, pressure management, lifestyle and tissue health. 
 

• Surgery doesn't change the health of your gut microbiome, which determines the health of your pelvic tissue and hormones.
   

• Surgery doesn't stop constipation, change your breathing habits or how you regulate intra-abdominal pressure. 
   

• Surgery doesn't sustainably lift your tissues or teach you how to move in a way that activates your pelvic floor as needed. 

And so because surgery is often just a big ol' expensive bandaid, we find ourselves back in the same ol' pickle. 

**There are absolutely instances when trauma merits surgery and or situations where we need surgical intervention to stop or slow damage to the body. But even with surgery, it's imperative that we not see it as a solution, but as something that is staving off problems...and the problems will return if we don't change how we live!



THIS is why I advocate that we all take a step BACK from our health problems and try to better understand the many other aspects of health in our body, to which our problems can be related. 


When I hurt my shoulder, I tried stretching it and resting it...but I never got any healing or was able to move past the chronic pain until I sought out someone that understand how my shoulder was responding to my ENTIRE body's movement mechanics. Shoutout to Kate Galliett!



And when I developed prolapse, my breakthrough moment that lead to progress and healing was when I began to understand that my prolapse was only sort of about the pelvic floor, but was MORE about how I was carrying my body around all day long every day...
how I was breathing....
how my body was struggling with major gut dysbiois and this was resulting in malnourished tissues and elimination struggles
and lastly
how my stress and failure to take care of my body was increasing my stress response and worsening symptoms. 


And so today, whether it's pelvic health, knee pain, food struggles or motivation to move and train your body, I want to encourage you to zoom out!
Whatever narrative you've created about your pain or condition, I want you to put it on the shelf today. 


Instead of "I have a bad back", consider that your back pain is a message to you that something or things in the body aren't functioning optimally. 

What is it connected to or impacted by in the body?
Your hips, abdominal muscles, glutes, shoulders, feet....

How often do you "train" your back to be strong and able to do the things you need it to do?
Even standing or sitting up straight takes energy and work!

Do you simply stretch it, or do you build it and its capabilities?

Is back surgery or pain reliever going solve the root cause of your problem?

If you stick your finger in the back pain "hole in the dike" will the water start coming out another area of the body? 
Chances are pretty great that it will. 


Instead of, "I have always been a fat kid" or "I can't help but binge at night", "I don't like moving or exercise," 

Stop blaming yourself or your body and find all the tiny or big threads that are attached to these actions and tendencies and see where they lead you?
What is this behavior a RESPONSE to?
What is it telling you about yourself and your life and what's ONE little thing you can do today to try to address the LARGER issue?

And most importantly, where can you find someone that can HELP you get perspective and zoom out??!!


For ease of understanding and discussion, we have split up the body into lots of little pieces and given those pieces names. 
But make no mistake, EVERYTHING is connected. 
Zooming out from your problems is going to give you PERSPECTIVE and OPPORTUNITY to find LOTS of different solutions and areas of impact in t he body to calm your pain and give you LASTING healing. 


Which reminds me, you are invited to join my seminar on mindset strategies I employed to finally get some healing from my pelvic health struggles!
If you're struggling now, still battling the same level of symptoms you had when you were diagnosed or WORSE, then you're going to want to attend. 
It wasn't until I got my MIND right around my prolapse, that I was able to find solutions, strategies that worked and healing!
Come join us!

SIGN UP HERE



xoxo,
Sarah Smith 

Sarah Smith is on a mission to help women conquer their pelvic health struggles and build STRENGTH and SKILLS!
She is a strength coach, RKC2 Kettlebell Instructor, Original Strength Pro Instructor, certified personal trainer, postnatal fitness specialist and pelvic floor and gut health advocate with a Masters in Soil and Agricultural Science.
Sarah works online and in Raleigh, North Carolina. 
She is a Believer, wife to her best friend, Jeremiah, a mom to three boys and one English Bulldog.
She loves soil, coffee and not folding laundry. 
Come follow her on Instagram or Facebook.

From bitters to breathing, here are FIVE things I bet you're not doing to help your gut and pelvic health struggles

The gut (pink area #3) and the pelvis (green, #4) are CLOSELY related neighbors.
When once is in suboptimal condition, often the other suffers!

These two important parts of the body are so tightly linked to one another as well as OTHER systems in the body.

Therefore it’s in our best interest to “zoom out” , stop hyper-focusing on our pelvic floor struggles, begin to look for other problems that we can address in the body to improve the health and function of our pelvic tissues.

Today I’m giving you FIVE action steps you can take to improve gut and pelvic health and restore balance to the body!

Let’s start with adding more bitters to your diet

Photos from Country Living Magazine

What are bitters?
Bitter greens like chicory, dandelion, arugula, radicchio, endive and burdock.
Licorice, gentian root, artichoke leaf, mugwort, black walnut leaf, sarsaparilla and there are manyY more!

What do they do?
We are STILL learning about the many benefits of bitters, but the quickest explanation is that because they have a strong and pungent taste, like a poison, but do not have an poisons properties, the brain signals to the digestive tract to GET TO WORK!
The liver begins to detoxify and digestive juices start flowing to help the body process what’s coming down the pipe.
Bitters are “cooling” so they help to reduce inflammation which can results in anything from a reduction in stress to pain!

Why are the beneficial?
Consuming bitters stimulates the release of gastrin, a digestive hormone that signals to the body to secrete saliva, hydrochloric acid, pepsin (a digestive enzyme that breaks down food), and intrinsic factor (responsible for vitamin B12 absorption).

The liver and the gallbladder produce and secrete bile in response to bitters, ALSO helping with the digestive process.

If you’ve read my other blogs on the gut/pelvic floor connection, then you KNOW that digestion is DIRECTLY related to the health of the pelvic floor.
Tissue health confers structural stability and responsiveness to neural signaling and requires adequate nutrient absorption and nourishment.
The better we digest and absorb nutrition from our diet, the better our tissues and muscle health.
When we are malnourished, we see muscle wasting and a lack of regeneration of tissue.

Additionally, sluggish, inefficient digestion causes constipation or a viscous cycle of diarrhea and constipation.
Straining in the bathroom applies lots of pressure to the pelvic floor.
Anyone struggling with rectocele OR an over-recruited pelvic floor, knows how important, easy, routine elimination is for their pelvic health and comfort.

Bitters stimulate the liver and therefore help it to better do its job!

Because bitters are a “cooling” chemical, which means they can fight inflammation that is causing your pelvic or abdominal pain. (reference)

For more reading about the benefits of bitters click here and here.

How to incorporate bitters?
First! Always ask your healthcare provider/functional medicine doctor before starting any supplements.

1.Drink dandelion root tea daily. This is a SUPER mild and low dose of bitters that you can easily incorporate into your diet. There is such things as too much of a good thing, so read the box to see how many cups per day are recommended and START slow!

2. Eat more bitter greens! Arugula, radicchio, chicory, and artichoke leaf can all be easily added to a salad and grown in your own yard or container garden on a balcony!

Moving on to training the parasympathetic nervous system…

Market Watch .com

I can not stress enough how important it is to train your body to spend LESS time being stressed.
I have ALL of my clients train activating the parasympathetic nervous systems throughout their days and in their workouts!

Many of us, especially those with Type A personalities like me!, are living our lives in a chronically stressed state.
We have shallow breathing patterns.
We tense our bellies.
We clench our jaws.
We go, go, go until we crash.

You and I, we need to train ourselves to spend MORe time in the parasympathetic mode of our nervous system, rest and digest, vs. FIGHT OR FLIGHT!

Why is this important?
When we are in the sympathetic mode of the nervous system (fight or flight) our body chemistry changes. We create more acid, cortisol, and adrenaline.
This makes our muscles tense and twitchy. We are over-stimulated and often times have difficulty being present or mindful of our decision.
Blood flow is diverted away from the intestines to the heart, muscles and brain so that we can ReSPOND quickly, but health of the gut, digestion and nutrient absorption suffers.

When we chronically produce adrenaline and cortisol, over time the body becomes LESS sensitive to them and we then have to resort to stimulants like caffeine, sugar, lots of exercise and taking on more and more projects to feel good and energized.

Why does this impact pelvic health?
Well it impacts your pelvic health in any number of ways.

1. Digestion and elimination is compromised which again causes lack of nourishment to the tissues and elimination struggles like constipation.

2. The health of the gut microbiome suffers too because the loss of blood flow and constant stress kills your good bugs. Your good gut bugs reduce stress and inflammation in your pelvic tissues and hormone regulation. Without them you can experience and increase in pelvic pain or symptoms of prolapse.

3. Fight or flight mode means shallow, short breaths and the diaphragm is NOT moving through its full range of motion. This impedes adequate relaxation and recruitment of the pelvic floor, pelvic position and core stability (check out my handout here) which will increase or worsen you symptoms, stall your rehab!

What can you do?

In extreme cases, some individuals (and this is becoming more and more common) need vagal nerve therapy. The vagus nerve is what tells the body whether it should be in the parasympathetic or sympathetic state of the nervous system.
When it comes disregulated from trauma, surgery or chronic stress, sometimes it needs to be “reset” so that the body can re-learn how to move smoothly in between the two modes of the autonomic nervous system.

But let’s say you don’t have signs of vagus nerve dysfunction, here are THREE more things you can do YOURSELF to stimulate the parasympathetic mode of the nervous system.

3. Stomach massage

Massaging your own belly and manually moving around abdominal contents can help to relieve stress, and tension and relax the body.
Massage in a counter-clockwise direction and don’t every push on anything painful.
Working with a bodywork specialist and having them demonstrate how you can self-massage is a GREAT idea!
Click here for more info!
Bonus, if you’ve been struggling with digestion or constipation this should help!
If you are experiencing an increase in prolapse symptoms or over-recruitment, this can help to relax the tension in the belly and pelvic floor and take pressure off of your pelvic organs too!

4. Diaphragmatic breathing practice.
Breathing with the diaphragm (tongue on the roof of your mouth, inhaling through the nose) is a sure way to calm the body and get into Rest and Digest mode!

If you are prone to stress, it’s a good idea to do some diaphragmatic breathing right when you wake up, before you go to sleep, before your workouts, and periodically throughout your day. Set an alert on your phone!!

When I feel symptoms of pelvic floor tightness or prolapse OR feel like my digestion is suffering, breathing has ALWAYS helped to decrease the symptoms and calm more mind and body.

If you’re never practiced it, start here and here.

5. Start ROCKING daily!


Rocking on all fours creates space in the pelvic and abdominal cavities. It calms and soothes the body and it’s how you learned posture and alignment in the first place as a baby!
Rocking can be a TOTAL game changer, if you do it consistently.
It will calm you AND set you up for future diaphragmatic breathing success, because of how well it aligns your body and facilitates the movement of the diaphragm.

Get started with it here!

If you’re ready to get serious about your pelvic floor problems.
If you’re trying to avoid surgery but are tired of this subpar existence that has you sitting on the sidelines and struggling to feel POWERFUL in your body.

Then you have to check out Hold Up! The strategies I teach in this course address the root causes behind your prolapse and will help you find HEALING while conquering your prolapse!

Come and learn more!

Sarah Smith is on a mission to help women conquer their pelvic health struggles and build STRENGTH and SKILLS!
She is a strength coach, RKC2 Kettlebell Instructor, Original Strength Pro Instructor, certified personal trainer, postnatal fitness specialist and pelvic floor and gut health advocate with a Masters in Soil and Agricultural Science.
Sarah works online and in Raleigh, North Carolina. 
She is a Believer, wife to her best friend, Jeremiah, a mom to three boys and one English Bulldog.
She loves soil, coffee and not folding laundry. 
Come follow her on Instagram or Facebook.

The first steps to healing after prolapse?

For months after my pelvic organ prolapse diagnosis I was distraught, frustrated, depressed and angry.

I was afraid to move, lift, sneeze, squat, bend over, pick up my kids….

I felt lost with absolutely NO direction for how I should go about my days.
Sure my physical therapy had provided me with exercises, but how do I MOVE? How do I LIVE??

There were months of wrestling with all this, up late at night searching on Google, reading forums and articles on prolapse in which all of the information was so doom and gloom….providing no hope whatsoever…
One evening, I was on my computer in middle of night searching furiously for answers or a glimmer of something positive and stumbled upon a forum in which a Crossfitter was posting about prolapse.

She was explaining how she too had prolapse, but had figured out strategies that allowed her to continue training.

I stopped dead in my online tracks.

Someone with prolapse was STILL TRAINING?
Not only that, but they were doing CROSSFIT?

But I had been told not to lift anything, not to walk downhill???
What the heck?!


I immediately felt hopeful, relieved even.
This sparked a desire to become innovative, so that I could get back to lifting!
I started to consider that prolapse, although not really a solvable problem, it was something I could tackle and work with, around or through.

I went to bed that night with feelings of peace and determination, knowing that tomorrow, I was going to start doing things differently.
And so I did.
I stopped researching prolapse and got to work researching the pelvic floor, it’s function in life and fitness.

I realized that if I could better understand how it was supposed to work, then I could try to solve my prolapse problem and at least decrease my symptoms and get back to what I loved, which was lifting.


That lightbulb/hopeful moment for me was in 2016 and it sparked a cascade of mental and physical events.

• Five months later I earned my Russian Kettlebell Certification.

• Six months after that, I found boldness around this issue and a passion to help other women feel less alone and started speaking out about pelvic organ prolapse and pelvic health struggles publicly online and in my business.

• And in another 6 months I earned my Level 2 Russian Kettlebell Certification, an incredibly challenging and physically demanding two kettlebell certification
  
  
  
  
  

There was a lot of physical work, healing, rehab, re-learning of movement that went into rehabbing my pelvic organ prolapse and earning my kettlebell certifications, but the single most IMPORTANT change I made in my life was changing how I thought about my prolapse and my body.

Even now, when I have bad days, symptom flare-ups, regrets and frustrations about what COULD HAVE BEEN, it is the MENTAL work that makes ALL of the difference in my life.

And so I’m sharing the FIRST TWO steps from my FREE seminar, Kettlebells Over Kegels: mindset shifts for conquering pelvic organ prolapse.

This seminar is about how I shifted my movement and mental strategies from a place of FEAR and FOCUS on prolapse to a place of PERSISTENCE, DETERMINATION STRENGTH and a SYSTEMATIC understanding of my prolapse in the context of my whole body!

This is the system that worked for me.

Step 1: Stop looking back.

Anyone with prolapse can tell you that anxiety about prolapse intensifies symptoms.
Our fear and feelings of regret ABSOLUTELY fuel these anxious feelings and not only limit or stall our rehab process, but can even make things feel WORSE!!!

You don’t ACTUALLY know what caused your prolapse.
Sure tearing during birth, long labors, gut health and elimination struggles, interventions like forceps and and vacuum suction, high BMI, diabetes and insulin resistance, poor tissue health and hormone struggles are risk factors for prolapse, but what caused those things to happen to us?
Movement mechanics before and during pregnancy?
And inability to relax the pelvic floor before and during labor?
Antibiotics, pathogens, stress or nutrition habits that recked our gut microbiome?
Lack of support during our birthing process??

We could drive ourselves MAD trying to tease out the ACTUAL cause and the reality is that there was most likely a cascade of events and risk factors that got us where we are now.
And we can’t go back.
We can’t reverse time or prolapse.
BUT we CAN absolutely move PAST it and work WITH it!

Looking back and fixating on what was or what should have been, prevents us from moving forward.
It limits our growth because our goal, the direction we are trying to move in, it’s in the past.
It’s an impossible destination.

I think you’re getting that now.

It was when I STOPPED obsessing over mistakes, anger about ALL the things no one ever told me and ALL the things I shouldn’t have done or could have done, that I began to make progress.

I started to funnel all that energy into creating and working towards are new goal: getting back into to movement with prolapse and reducing my symptoms as much as is possible, taking it one day at a time.

I decided that I could blaze a NEW trail, not just for myself but for ALL WOMEN struggling with prolapse!

Because at the end of the day we know two things:

1. There is NOT enough research on prolapse, the causes and or what ultimately happens to women with the right support,training and therapy.
   
   
   

2. We, the women of 2019 that have pelvic organ prolapse, we are writing history. We are defining the future of prolapse for ourselves and for others.
   
   
   We HAVE to believe that.
   We HAVE to live that as best we can.
   We have to surround ourselves with others that share this belief, so that when we feel like we are floundering, they can ground us.
   
   
   
   
   

Step 2. Zoom out, Stop hyper focusing on the pelvic floor and begin to understand the system in which it operates.



For me, laying on a table, kegeling with a machine attached to my body, hyper-focusing on forcing my pelvic floor, all by itself to return to its previous state was NOT working.
In fact, it was making things WORSE.
In the days after my PT, I would experience more symptoms and feel more depressed about my progress, than ever.
This is NOT because PT was bad, but because what I did in physical therapy wasn’t making up for how I was living my life outside of the PT office.

The pelvic floor, just like EVERY OTHER PART OF THE BODY, does NOT work in isolation from itself.
And if you’re like me, even before prolapse, it wasn’t working so great, by itself or with the other parts of my body.

This is why I named this seminar “Kettlebells over Kegels” because to me kettlebells are symbols of:

1. Functionality

2. Whole body communication and recruitment

3. Strong and mindful movement

And THAT’s the approach that informed MY HEALING!
Understanding and working towards improving the functionality of my pelvic floor required that I understand it in the context of my whole body and that I become mindful about how it responded to and supported my daily movements, both in and out of the gym!

Kegels aren’t bad, they’re just like isometrics in exercise.
They have a place and a benefit for teaching your body where you want it to go, but they are only one strategy and they should only be used to teach a particular part of the body what you want it to do in the context of the whole entire system.
They are only one part of the story and for some people, they have no business being in the story at all.

Kegels are ONLY helpful for women that have difficult recruiting their pelvic floor, but not every women with prolapse has that exact problem.
Some women have been kegeling their whole life and still have prolapse.
Some women have SUPER active parts of their pelvic floors while others are weaker and non-responsive and a Kegel alone is not going to help that. It can even make things worse.

Zooming out was an empowering (although a little overwhelming) experience because it helped me to see all of the OPTIONS I had for restoring health and function to my pelvic floor.

If you’ve been spending all of the time since your diagnosis zoomed in on the pelvic floor, trying to force it to comply with your desired for healing and reduction in symptoms, try taking a step back and thinking about ALL the other pieces of health that connect to your pelvic floor.

• Diet, nutrition practices, digestion and elimination (pooping)

• Stress, anxiety, depression

• Breathing habits

• Hormone struggles

• Daily movement practices

• Alignment habits

All of these pieces of your health impact your prolapse and vice versa!
If you’ve hit a wall with your prolapse therapy, try looking at these issues either on your own or with a professional to see if there’s some work that you can do to improve the overall function of your WHOLE SYSTEM.
Everything is connected!

To continue learning about mindset shifts for conquering your pelvic organ prolapse, pre-register for my online seminar here.

Sarah Smith is on a mission to help women conquer their pelvic health struggles and build STRENGTH and SKILLS!
She is a strength coach, RKC2 Kettlebell Instructor, Original Strength Pro Instructor, certified personal trainer, postnatal fitness specialist and pelvic floor and gut health advocate with a Masters in Soil and Agricultural Science.
Sarah works online and in Raleigh, North Carolina. 
She is a Believer, wife to her best friend, Jeremiah, a mom to three boys and one English Bulldog.
She loves soil, coffee and not folding laundry. 
Come follow her on Instagram or Facebook.