Pushing Out to Go Within

A story about my unbalanced root chakra and my postpartum crisis

I remember reading in a postpartum book how important it was, for the overall healing and well-being of a new mom, that her pelvic floor came back in shape and regained its strength. The book didn’t just talk about the physical aspects of the healing process after giving birth. It talked about the root chakra, it explained how its stability depends on that of all the other chakras, and how it is connected to the pelvic floor. My baby must have been about four months old when I read that book. Its concepts impressed me. Even if I could not understand them, I knew I had to let them soak in. At that point, my pelvic floor still hadn’t recovered from the birth of my beloved daughter. And I was facing one of the hardest times of my life. Little did I know that within months, what the book was telling me was going to be my truth too.

I am one of those not so rare women, to whom becoming a mother meant getting face to face with old wounds and traumas. Some of which I thought I had already completely healed...

I am one of those not-so-rare women, to whom becoming a mother meant getting face to face with old wounds and traumas. Some of which I thought I had already completely healed, and some of which I did not even know existed. I became aware of the fact that something was going on with me about two months after the birth of my child. Don’t get me wrong: the first 8 weeks weren’t a picnic either, with my body recovering from the pregnancy, the birth, and a long post-natal stay at the hospital, fighting a womb infection. Not only that: the first months were a mixture of amazement and frustration, dealing with adjustments and fears of not doing things right. But when my daughter was about two months old, I started feeling really down. I started having problems with almost every member of my family. For one reason or another, I was reacting with anger and anxiety to their presence, actions, questions, requests or statements. I was so fragile. I was very slowly discovering that many of my relationships needed healing. And that while I was in the midst of building probably the most important one of my life: the one with my daughter. Thanks to a life coach I realized – through months of sessions – that it was my inner child who needed to be mothered and nurtured, before the adult version of me could become a mom to another child. In the midst of all this, up to eight months after my baby’s birth, my pelvic floor and I were having a hard time too. The big shock arrived when I peed myself in big style while I was running in the woods. A physiotherapist at the hospital had told me that I could start doing physical activities again after six weeks. Well… so I did. To me, going back to physical activities meant doing some jogging again. An interpretation that turned out not be correct. A week after the accident, I talked to a yoga teacher, who told me that I needed to wait at least six months before doing any sports that included any sort of bumpy movements. I started doing pelvic floor exercises on my own, watching some Youtube videos. I also did some mommy & baby postnatal classes. Still, the muscles felt tired, and I was still feeling the urge to pee often whenever I was moving my body, even though I wasn’t running or jumping or doing anything of that kind. After eight months, I decided to see my gynecologist again. She suggested some one-on-one sessions with a physiotherapist. I accepted. Luckily, that was the right cure to go back to a healthy and happy pelvic floor again. On the bodily side, that is. Because in the meantime, my inner healing was continuing too. My healing journey - which I’ve gone through accompanied by my life coach David, but also by books, healers and therapists I was watching and hearing on TED Talks, and also a psychologist who I saw a couple of times - was slowly showing the first results. On the most superficial level, I had to find my new place within our family. As a daughter who had just become a mother, I was going through an identity change and I did not know who the new me was. I was also recovering from the fast way we conceived our baby when, really, I was just half ready to welcome it, and the quick birth (4 hours) we had at week 37, while I was still working on a high pace and not preparing myself for what was about to come. On a deeper level, I had to realize I had a codependent behavior with many members of my family, and that I had a negative image of mothers and parenthood. I realized there were unhealthy patterns that had been passed from generation to generation. From my side of the family and, so I believe, from my partner’s side too. A concept that left me very anxious and scared of passing them to my baby, too.

As always, love was the answer

Giving birth meant opening the portal to my shadow world. It cracked me open, giving me the possibility to get in touch with the deepest parts of me, parts of me that had stayed hidden for years. The shield I unknowingly used to carry around with me was gone. Which left me vulnerable and feeling so fragile. Like a raw egg without its shell. I dedicated myself to my inner work on a daily basis. I self-analyzed all that I could. I started meditating again, I went through rituals and prayed a lot. I faced my emotions and nurtured myself. I started putting some healthy boundaries around me and forgiving people and life. As always, love was the answer. Little by little, my body and my inner world were finding peace again. I don’t know which part of me healed first, I just know that one day, around my daughter's first birthday, my pelvic floor felt strong again. I could even dance up and down or carry my daughter for long periods of time without feeling any discomfort. I also know that around that same day, I felt like my protective shield (that egg's shell) was back again. I was strong again. Old and new wounds had been washed, they had turned into scares, and I was whole again. This strong experience reminded me how deeply my inner world and my physical structure are connected. Now, going back to that book that talked about the root chakra, it all seems so clear to me. Our body follows our inner state. And through our body, we can reach our internal state. Giving birth was a way to get there. Pushing out to go within. It gave me a chance to nurture that place within me while welcoming and nurturing a new fellow human being who came out of me. Isn’t that magical?