Beyond the purely physical realms of anatomy and movement, the pelvic floor plays an important role in our emotional and energetic health.

Muscles in all areas of our bodies, including the pelvic floor, have the potential to be affected by emotional forces. Pleasurable experiences and emotions tend to relax, energize, or expand us while non-pleasurable ones tend to make us tense up, contract, and perhaps depress us. Most of the time these reactions are transient, just as our experiences tend to be, and our muscles will return to a baseline range of function. If, however, the emotional impulse is strong enough or if it is present for a significant length of time, the potential arises for our muscular response to evolve into a chronic pattern which could eventually result in pain and dysfunction. Another factor to consider are the feelings we associate with the pelvic floor, as you will see below.

Our vitality depends on the generation and free flow of energy throughout our bodies. Though relatively new to Western science, this concept has been central to many Eastern practices and philosophies for thousands of years – think of the Meridian in the Daoist tradition and the concept of Bandha in yoga. The pelvic floor plays a fundamental role as both a key energy center and a nexus for many of these lines of energy. Excess tension and contraction in these muscles can result in the flow of energy being blocked or stuck, while significant weakness can result in an impaired ability to conserve energy. Either situation can lead to a decrease in our capacity to generate and maintain vitality.

There are many ways to become aware of, examine, and transform the emotional and energetic aspects of our pelvic floor, among them counseling, psychotherapy, breath work, meditation, martial arts, yoga, and self-directed personal exploration. Pelvic floor massage and bodywork can integrate well with any of these or stand on its own as a useful approach. 

Aspects of our life’s history, including emotions, can affect our pelvic floor even long after the events themselves. Stress can carry elements of fear or anger, for example, and when these translate into muscular tension, the areas affected are more closed off, are less able to feel, and are less able to generate pleasure. Psychotherapist Jack Morin puts it well when he says: “All of us have preferred places in our bodies where the fears, hurts, and worries of life are most readily expressed in muscular tension. In these hypersensitive zones old fears and hurts linger and fester…. The tendency to tighten the pelvic floor is no accident. It is one of the central ways most individuals with pelvic pain, usually unconsciously, deal with the stresses of life. And yet especially when it arises, pelvic pain is perpetuated in an internal atmosphere of fear, anxiety, dread, resentment, and anger. These feelings are usually subterranean… and are usually invisible to others or even to one’s self.” 

For some people, freedom in the hips evokes a hint of fear or shame. We are so accustomed to protecting and hiding the pelvic floor that releasing it can feel like exposure. For some, letting go and feeling open in the pelvic floor can be especially challenging because being “in control” often means holding on, repressing feelings, being uptight, and distancing themselves from their softer, more receptive sides. We have a term in the States – “tight-ass” – meaning a person that rigidifies his [pelvic floor] in this fashion frequently also suppresses his emotions, with overemphasized intellectual control.

From the physiological perspective through, the connection between the pelvic floor and our emotions can also be seen: the muscles that attach to the tailbone (coccyx) in humans are the three main pelvic floor muscles (Pubococcygeus, Iliococcygeus, and Ischiococcygeus) plus some fibers of the Gluteus Maximus. Humans are mammals, as are dogs for example, and these same muscles in dogs control their tail, enabling such actions as wagging, pointing, or pulling the tail between their legs. It is usually easy to tell a dog’s emotional state by what its tail is doing. Though humans only have a vestigial tail, there is some evolutionary echo between the actions or state of these muscles and our emotions.

To be sure, the pelvic floor is capable of, and even designed for, experiencing a wide range of positive feelings and sensations. It has the capacity to be strong and robust, yet supple, open, and responsive, fulfilling its important role in the symphony of physical and emotional activities that characterize the interplay between mind and body.

You can learn more about  the energetic and emotional aspects of the body’s core, including the pelvic floor in most of our classes, especially our Meridian Yin Yoga class every Sundays. Book your class here.