What if the key to unlocking your full potential lies in a part of your body that’s often overlooked and misunderstood? This week we’re diving into the transformative world of holistic pelvic care with Tami Lynn Kent.

In this episode, we explore:

• Integrating Eastern and Western Approaches: The importance of integrating both physical therapy for the pelvic floor as well as energetic practices, like breath work and meditation to help women connect with their pelvic regions.

• Addressing Gaps in Female Healthcare: Highlighting significant gaps in female healthcare and the importance of understanding the anatomy of the pelvic bowl to empower women.

• Supporting Mothers: What it means to “mother from your center” and how to tap into this in your parenting.

• Feminine versus Masculine Energy: The importance of understanding and balancing feminine and masculine energy within ourselves.

• Practical Tips for Pelvic Health: Practical advice for integrating holistic pelvic care into your daily life, emphasizing the importance of tuning into your body and harnessing your innate wisdom.

Join us for this enlightening episode as we delve into the vital topic of pelvic health and discover how to better support and honor our bodies.

Tami (00:00):

When you get into the root, the root is different than the mind. It really tells the truth, and it kind of will show you if a woman’s feeling exhausted or if she isn’t really feeling good about how things are going. And it’s like you almost can’t hide.

Dr. Sarah (00:18):

Today on the podcast, we’re diving into the topic of pelvic care. An area of female healthcare often shrouded in mystery and neglected by conventional medical practices. Joining me for this conversation is Tami Kent, a women’s health physical therapist, founder of the original method of Holistic Pelvic Care™ for women, an author of Wild Feminine, Wild Creative, and Wild Mothering. Tami shares her journey into this field and we discuss the critical role of physical therapy for the pelvic bowl and the benefits it brings to muscles, fascia alignment, and the immune system. Plus we talk about the significant gaps in female healthcare, particularly for mothers, and how understanding the anatomy of our bodies and tuning into our bodies can empower women to better care for themselves.

(01:06):

Hi, I’m Dr. Sarah Bren, a clinical psychologist and mom of two. In this podcast, I’ve taken all of my clinical experience, current research on brain science and child psychology, and the insights I’ve gained on my own parenting journey and distilled everything down into easy to understand and actionable parenting insights. So you can tune out the noise and tune into your own authentic parenting voice with confidence and calm. This is Securely Attached.

(01:44):

Hi, I am so excited to welcome Tami Kent to the podcast. How are you?

Tami (01:49):

I’m so good. Great to be here.

Dr. Sarah (01:52):

It’s wonderful to have you. I’m excited about our conversation today. I feel like I am getting ready to interview you as both a podcast interviewer, but as a woman with a pelvic floor and uterus and wanting to know so much. But let’s start maybe by just talking a little bit about the work that you do and how you got into it because you have a very unique niche inside of your field.

Tami (02:21):

Yes. I started out just in general physical therapy. I was fascinated with the body into yoga. Also, my mom was a dance teacher, so I was around a lot of movement and curious about it. And it wasn’t until I was in the third year of my graduate program that I realized there was even a women’s health specialty and I had toyed with going into obstetrics or gynecology or midwifery. And so I was thrilled that there was something that could serve women, but I didn’t know that much about it. So I jumped out of school and trained with this woman named M.J. Strauhal, who’s a leader in the field of women’s health, physical therapy, and found out about this body work, practiced this way of taking care of women’s bodies that really all of us should have and know as basic care. So we think about women’s healthcare as a pap exam, and that’s just looking for problems.

(03:05):

It’s not preventative at all. Women’s health, physical therapy looks at the muscles, the organs, the fascia, the alignment and works with that in a proactive way. It certainly treats symptoms, and I was just fascinated when I stepped into it because a lot of the women I was treating were more midlife or beyond having urine leakage and other issues. And I had a baby and thought, why aren’t we doing this body work sooner? Why aren’t we taking care of mothers? Why aren’t we taking care of them postpartum? And I left the hospital setting and started my own practice and never looked back. And I have a 24-year-old son now. I have three beautiful boys, young adults, and I love doing this work for the women’s health. Pelvic care could be so part of our general women’s healthcare, and it really is good for the muscles, the fascia, the alignment, the health. It’s part of our immune system, the pelvic bowl. So when it’s in good alignment, we feel better, we are better, we’re more vital. And so that’s the women’s health piece. And then I went deeper into something I called Holistic Pelvic Care™ because I started working with women one-on-one younger and different coming in for different things, even preventatively, and started to realize how much this was tied to our wellbeing and started to work more in an energetic holistic model, which I can share more about if you want to hear the specifics.

Dr. Sarah (04:16):

Oh, I do, I do. When you say, because I’m imagining, I know we have a lot of women and people who have uterus who are listening to this podcast. I know we have some men too. So I hope this episode is illuminating too for anybody who’s listening, anyone who has a woman in their life. But if people are not that familiar, I just feel like this is an area that’s like so shrouded in mystery and lack of, it’s just not part of the daily life, let alone even if you have problems, they’re very frequently not addressed. A huge number of people who would benefit from pelvic floor support don’t even know that that’s something they could get help with. It’s not even a field that as many people know exists.

Tami (05:17):

Absolutely.

Dr. Sarah (05:17):

Can you tell us more?

Tami (05:19):

Yeah. I mean, I would say, okay, so here’s one basic idea just to understand. We go to the dentist and we get our mouth cleaned and we get this work done. Imagine if we never did that, the issues we would end up with. And I think it’s kind of like that with the pelvic floor. There’s more beautiful preventive work we could do that’s kind of brushing your teeth, which I would call pelvic massage that works with the health of the region. And I think it’s because of maybe the sexualization of the pelvic bowl where we kind of always like, oh, we don’t talk about that. And I know the more online generation is more verbal and more talking about these things, but we have to realize where we come from that there’s sort of this blind spot in both the female body. Also, a lot of medicine has been built for and by males, and I love males.

(06:03):

I have a wonderful husband and three sons, but it isn’t really serving our needs as women. And so for me, this is a very female oriented care where we start to understand the pelvic bowl as a place where we have muscles and organs and a lot going on that if we know what’s there, we can take better care of it. So what we were just talking about was how when women come to see me, I bring out my pelvic model and just show them the muscles and the organs and how things sit together. And it’s often the first time that a woman is sitting with me has actually seen the musculature and knows what is there. And if you know how things align and you know how they can get out of alignment with stress, with tension, with falls, with childbirth, with miscarriage, if you understand the anatomy of it, then you can better take care of the region.

(06:51):

And for me as well, I had never looked at a model of my own body until I was in women’s health physical therapy. So it’s a blind spot. I would say the other thing that’s missing from mainstream medicine is physical medicine, which would be orientation, body work that works on the physical structure, the muscles, the organs, the fascia. And so it’s just kind of a missing piece that is so vital for our women’s care, for our female body care. And so now that I’m in that zone and I get to take care of so many women and I see the benefits and they experience the benefits, they come out of my office and say, I feel great. I feel so much better. I feel like I just left a bunch of tension behind. And then that’s how my practice is by word of mouth, that women go out and say, I feel so much better.

(07:33):

We should be doing this. So it’s a lot of education to teach people. When we think of women’s healthcare one way we think of it as a pap exam, but understanding how that got framed and expanding the model of care to actually serve our bodies is really part of my passion and my mission. And then my aspect of the Holistic Pelvic Care™ takes that into consideration, takes that framework of the women’s health, physical therapy and the muscles in the fascia, and it brings in things like chi and breath and presence and connection that can help on such a deep level of a woman feeling really at home in her body. So that’s it in a nutshell.

Dr. Sarah (08:10):

I love that. I think it’s such an important combo. And as a clinical psychologist, the training is so technical and clinical and the idea of as you get out of grad school and you start to explore other modalities and integrate them more into your work, I mean there are a lot of clinicians who then go out and understand breath work and mindfulness and meditation and energetic flow and all that stuff. And I’ve actually in the last couple of years, been much, much more interested in that, in integrating that stuff into my own clinical work and my own personal work on myself. So I feel like there’s this often an evolution of integrating those two worlds. I always love talking to people who straddle two worlds like that, a more clinical world and a more energetic sort of, I don’t know, presence based work and weave them.

Tami (09:17):

Presence is the key. And I think what happened for me was I was working on the pelvic bowl as a body worker, as a clinician, and I was seeing how absent women often were from that space. And it was a question for me of why are we absent when this is this powerful place where we can give life powerful? Why are we absent? And that started a whole kind of a search. I did a Ted talk called The Vagina Whisperer, moving from shame to honor in the female body. And the root of the disconnect is often shame. And there’s many reasons for that. Menstrual shame, sexual shame, gender shame, trauma. But the more we honor and feel honored as women, the more we embody. And so breath was a good inroad. It also was really good for me to help bridge trauma and help people come through things, not as a psychologist, but as a body worker, just encouraging people to come to that space. And so it was a beautiful way to bridge that embodiment so that the woman on the table that I was working with could feel more present in her own body, in a space in her body that’s so vital and so core.

Dr. Sarah (10:29):

So how do you help if people are listening and because breath is so accessible, we all can use that as a tool to gain connection to our mind, our pelvis, wherever. What are some of the things that you help somebody kind of connect to when they’re doing breath work to get more connected into their pelvis, pelvic region?

Tami (10:54):

That’s a good question. And I think that’s maybe what I noticed was a lot of breath work was more mental or kind of upper body. And so for me, I would call it body sensing exercises where you sense into part of your body and you start to breathe to that part of your body. And so it’s applied in my case specifically to the pelvic bowl. So we breathe down to the root, the perineum, the pelvic floor, we breathe to the left ovary, breathe to the right ovary, actually come into the womb space. There’s a protocol that I go through that is part of what I developed in the Holistic Pelvic Care™ as a model of care. And then in the books I’ve written, I have a lot of body sensing meditations where women can practice working with their own breath and presence and connection in their body.

(11:36):

And these were really antidotes to that disconnect. And the thing about it is it brought so much healing also for women because of course, this is such a powerful place. I mean, imagine if men could generate babies, they would be their praises. There’s a vital creative life force in our pelvic bowls and we can tap into that and access that. So the breath is, for me, it’s like an inroad for body sensing and connecting. And I use that through various visualization exercises in my work on the table and also in the classes I teach and also in the books I’ve written.

Dr. Sarah (12:11):

Yeah, your books are really interesting. And can you talk a little bit about, because even just the evolution, did you write them in a particular Wild Feminine to then Wild Mothering? How did that evolve? Why did you specify? Why did you go deeper into the mothering? I’m very curious about the mothering piece and where the role of the mother plays in the larger pictures of feminine connection and presence.

Tami (12:41):

Absolutely. Well, the first book was of course Wild Feminine, and that was my exploration. It took a decade to write of how do I support women in coming deeper into the pelvic space and accessing and harnessing the power there and also working through the obstacles that might be there, trauma and other things. And I didn’t know exactly what I was writing, but at first I love books. So I went to the literature to help me understand what is root chakra and how do we come into this space as an energetic space. And I really found very general, I didn’t find anything that I was looking for as someone who was seeking. So I found very general root chakra, second chakra kind of information. So what I started doing was taking notes after every session about when we did breath work to the ovary, what came up came up for that woman, what information was given.

(13:34):

And I started to approach less from a clinician that is more medical model fixing and more from one who was listening. So I would listen to the body and listen to the body wisdom and then take notes. And that over a decade was what turned into wild feminine, which I would call it a self-guided manual to how do you come into your public bowl and understand the energetics there distilled from many, many data points from just, most of us will have our friends or a few data points. So I knew that I was in this room and I was having a lot of data points of what does the ovary mean? What does the right ovary mean? What does the wo mean in a general sense, just so we can find our way back there? And so that was a very foundational book. Then of course, many women are coming to me or seek pelvic care after having a baby because your body’s so changed.

(14:19):

Whether you give birth via cesarean or you give birth vaginally, you are impacted. And many of the women I would see down the road in women’s healthcare, it was because of long-term, their bodies not being supported postpartum. So they were having urine leaked and things down the road. So I have a deep passion for caring for women, so caring for the female body, Wild, Feminine, caring for the mothers. I think mothers are on the front lines of feminine repair. When you’re tending the children, you’re tending the home, you’re really tending the future. And I don’t feel that mothers are cared for enough. I feel like they give and they receive far less than they receive of what they’re giving. And so the next book that I wrote is actually Wild Mothering originally, but the publishing company suggested we change the title to Mothering From Your Center so that it would be more mainstream maybe and maybe more people would pick it up.

(15:11):

And that was a phrase I used meaning sourcing medicine from your center to mother from. And it didn’t really do what they were hoping. It didn’t hit bigger, it kind of got lost in the parenting books. So that book I wrote when my son was, my oldest son was 12 and my youngest was five. And so I had this version of mothering that I had supported mothers and also been a mother myself to this point. And then I wrote a book on creativity because of course the womb and the whole field, we source our creativity. And I wrote that less around gender and more around male female. We all come in through the womb. It’s not as body focused, but it is energetic and it’s about living a creative life. And so I wrote that book, maybe wrote that book for my sons as well.

(15:55):

Then about two years ago, or I guess it was about a year and a half ago, the publishing company came back to me and said, Hey, would you like to re-release your mothering book as Wild Mothering? And I said, I would love to because there’s more medicine for the mothers. The mothers are continuing to work in this time where the online world and all the things are happening, they’re trying to track all these things. I have more medicine than I’ve learned. I’m an elder mother, I can include that. And so we re-released it and that’s why that came out. So that was the order of things. And for me, all of this work is really meant to love and support all of us in our female bodies and being healthy and well and sourcing the medicine that’s there in the mothering. In that book, I wrote a lot about healing the pelvis from birth. I wrote about birth trauma, another passion of mine and how to work on the energetics of birth trauma so you feel healed and whole and how to mother and use the energy of your body, the natural energy to mother from that place, even through the heartache and the challenges and then the creative book just for all of us trying to create a better world. So that’s my medicine.

Dr. Sarah (16:58):

I love it. But I think the reason why I’m not shocked at all that maybe your publishers came back and like, okay, let’s reconsider this wild mothering thing because I think there is, and it’s got its double-edged sword for sure. But there has been a reawakening culturally I think, and maybe it’s driven by mothers, maybe it’s because I think a younger generation of mothers has come into motherhood and they’re a lot more comfortable saying like, Hey, I’m not okay with not being cared for and I want policy to change and I want people to talk about this. And hey, guess what? I do have pelvic floor issues and hey, guess what? I pee in my pants when I laugh and I’m not okay with that. And what do we, I think people have gotten a little, there’s been more noise, good noise around, Hey, we want more attention on our needs where we don’t want to be just a body that gets used up and now we’re going to keep going and a lot of distress.

Tami (18:08):

Right.

Dr. Sarah (18:10):

I’m curious your thoughts on just being on the inside of that as an elder mother revisiting motherhood from that vantage point and looking at it as a way to how do we help another generation of mothers now with the tools that we didn’t have maybe?

Tami (18:25):

Well, yeah, I think you’re touching on many things, but one is that I think creativity is going to be our superpower for the future. And women have always been the creators. We’re always adapting and moving and just fixing. That’s why all these products, when I had my first son, the internet wasn’t even here. It’s kind of wild. I had him in 2000 and I wanted to wear him, so I ordered a wrap through the mail and tried to tie it on, and it was like I was reading these paper instructions and you think of all the changes that have happened from then mostly because of mothers, mothers saying, Hey, we want more. We want nursing wear, we want pregnancy wear, we want solutions for the postpartum issues. We want carriers. We want all these products and things to support us in our mothering. And so I do think there’s a much more awakened conversation around all of this that is like, we’re going to use our creativity and we’re going to be dynamic and we’re going to solve these problems.

(19:20):

And that for me was where I was coming from. So that’s why when they asked me to change the title from Wild Feminine, for me that title was sort of nature, beauty, power intensity, all the things that I feel. I didn’t want that to look like a tampon ad where I was prescribed. I found an artist, and actually it’s beautiful. I originally self-published and they used the same artist. I wanted something that many women could look at and just feel alive, feel color and inspiration, and then they could make their own version of what that looked like. What is a wild feminine? So same with mothering. And when they came back to me and said, how about mothering from your center? I mean, it’s a phrase I use and I think it’s the medicine from our centers can help us, but it kind of comes off in a title.

(20:07):

It sounds like you’ve got it all figured out. And it’s like that’s the opposite. It’s more like stuff gets real and you have to it all the time. It’s like you’re trying to run out the door and a kid is sick and then you’re just adapting, adapting, adapting. And so it’s wild. And sometimes that wild is kind of crazy, the storm that comes in and sometimes it’s the sweet beauty that comes after a storm. And to me, we need all of our medicine to help us. And what I know from the female body is that that womb energy and that pelvic bowl energy is vital to a woman’s wellbeing. It’s vital to her mothering. And I talk about how to kind of mother from that place, what that looks like. It’s not about perfection. It’s not about even being the most amazing mom. It’s more about what do you need in the moment?

(20:53):

How are you feeling? Where are you at checking in with your own center? Do you need more pelvic care, pelvic massage so you feel better so you can move so you can lift because mothering is so physical, are you in need of actual hands-on care because you need that alignment so you can have your root underneath you. Is it at about an emotional piece where you feel heavy and you feel something is unresolved? You haven’t even had a chance to have your own needs met. Just even sometimes when people are on the table with me, the tears are coming up because there’s something where they just, women often put their own needs aside to take care of others. So I would say, I’m not sure if I’m answering your question, but…

Dr. Sarah (21:32):

Yeah, you are.

Tami (21:35):

I think we’re moving and we’re more and more aware of how important we are and asking for what we need. And I hope that these books give that kind of medicine that kind of women have said to me, even with the other title, that book is now the same book with added information. So it’s like the mothering information center is tucked into wild mothering. I call that book my love letter to mothers, and they read that and they’re like, I feel so seen what we do. You’re articulating what we do. And I’m both validating and advocating at the same time for them.

Dr. Sarah (22:09):

And because like I said, double-edged sword earlier, I mean I think that yes, the internet and the social media and this presence of motherhood being so front and center has its great benefits because I think it gets people talking more about the things that really matter and paying attention to this stuff and normalizing these conversations. There is an overload of information, this idea of, you said something about being able in the midst of all this wildness that happens in the day of mothering to slow down, to tune into your center, to your power, to your innate wisdom, to your intuition, to your life force, to your ability to give that and share that with your children in a sort of contained and regulated way that doesn’t drain you. That’s not I overgive, but I give and I’m replenishing in this cyclical respectful of myself way that I think gets lost in a lot of the noise.

(23:18):

Just like it’s great that there’s products that support women’s needs to have better baby wear and nursing support and postpartum stuff. There’s also a ton of stuff being like, you need this and this and this and this, and you can’t trust your gut and you should be looking to all these other people to tell you what to do. And if you’re not sure, Google it. And it takes people out of knowing, out of their center, out of their trust in themselves. And so I think I’m just curious, your take on that piece and imagine the work that you do is really about helping women reconnect with that with some compassion and some trust.

Tami (23:57):

You bring up such a great point, and I think that is, it’s like exactly, there’s more information. And so also there can be more pressure to be more perfect for your child or be the best mother or keep going. It becomes like a triathlon. And I think that’s where all this work, all of it. So in wild feminine or as when someone’s on the table, I’m tuning them into their bodies, they might be looking to me, and that’s sort of like when we look to a healer for information, but I’m tuning them back into their own center. I’m listening with them and we’re receiving the information and that’s a repair that’s like, oh, my body is intelligent. Same with the mothering. I mean that’s where that phrase came from, mothering from your center, like what is in your center? And it starts with the mother.

(24:42):

So it can’t be like just for my child, this is where the mother gets lost, the mother gets lost in all the schooling decisions and all the care and what should I do here and what should I do there? And I remember that treadmill and how exhausting every little step felt because you were trying to do the right thing all the time. And so this is a different way of coming back into your center and yes, checking in with yourself and seeing how are you doing, what do you need, what’s happening for you? And then from there also sourcing wisdom and information. It’s much more grounded. And when you go out there in the data points, so I do a little bit of both for me, let’s say it’s choosing colleges or it’s choosing doctors or choices or there’s so many different data points when you’re a parent, we’ll look at the things of what get on the internet or whatever and look at, you could pick any topic and say this, but then I come to my own center and I’ve learned this well, and this is where I guide women, just feel into what feels true, feel into, or even set it down for a day and rest on it and then come back to it.

(25:49):

And when you bring your center into it and you bring your own guidance and knowledge, that’s the feminine, that’s the repair of the feminine and that’s what it looks like and it’s a repair because the whole world is noisy out here. So it’s probably even more vital than it was before because we have so many data points.

Dr. Sarah (26:09):

And when you say that’s the feminine, I’m curious, is there an energetic way you’re thinking about that feminine energy versus masculine energy? Can you talk more about that?

Tami (26:21):

Yeah, so part of Wild Feminine for me was a journey of asking that question, what is the feminine? It’s not a gender, it’s an energy. And it was a curiosity in a study. So now I feel like I have more awareness of what it is, but it’s still an ongoing thing. I would say the feminine in an energetic sense is the beginning place. So it’s where we all come in. So all of us boys, girls, every gender, we come into the female body. So the female body itself is sort of a representation of the feminine. It’s where we come in, it’s first place, usually energy downloads into a feminine space and then it becomes into form and becomes an outer masculine. So you can think female body is a representation, children the home. So that foundational aspect. So it’s why home making food, gardening, all the things that we associate with home and hearth, no matter who’s doing them, that’s part of the feminine.

(27:17):

It’s where the raw material comes in and it is the children because they come in and then they bring us to the home. My first son, I was way out in academia and studying and all those things and working, and then I had a child and went, oh, I was brought hard to stop to the feminine and I didn’t know what to do with it. And if you haven’t been in the feminine, it’s kind of a rude awakening because all of a sudden all the unmet needs and all the stuff that you left that you kind of dissociated from is like, whoa, here we are. It’s a gift and a real challenge. And I sit in that space with a lot of mothers who have been taught to be kind of driving forces, but it’s the home and hearth. And when you’re in the feminine, we all ought to be taught how to take care of the feminine no matter who we are, take care of our homes, take care of our food, take care of our gardens. Not everybody has to be a gardener and a cook and all the things. Maybe some people are good at some things, but to tend the center, to tend the center of the self, to tend the body, healthcare is also part of the feminine. So these are the foundational pieces of what I would call the feminine.

Dr. Sarah (28:23):

And it’s really interesting, I think you’ve said it a bunch of times and I appreciate that messaging, which is like when we’re talking about feminine and masculine energy, all human beings have both. And there’s actually research that says when a father has a baby, when a man becomes a father, when he goes through patresence, his testosterone levels tend to drop. And there’s an actual hormonal shift in his neurochemistry and neurobiology to become more potentially to have more connection to that feminine space. And then it evolves. We move in and out of these stages of our development and many women who go out into the world and live in a masculine energy driven world will take on a lot of that energetic, like you were saying. I relate to that. I went into academia and clinical work and I was in business and all this stuff, and it was wonderful.

(29:34):

Totally. I loved it. I still do. But when I had a kid, I was like internal physiological conflict. I have feeling that I did not anticipate something is shifting in my body and I’m being pulled now. It felt like I, I don’t even think I’ve ever really articulated this to myself even, but I felt this like, oh, I’m being pulled in these two different directions that I knew when I would have a kid, I would have other, I’d love my kid and I’d want to be home with my kid, but I couldn’t have anticipated this feeling of being split energetically. And I don’t even just now I’m kind of realizing this is where’re talking. That was something I definitely experienced.

Tami (30:19):

So you’re actually describing, so in wild feminine chapter four, I talk about the ovaries and I actually talk about the feminine masculine split because in general the feminine tends to be on the left side of the body, not for everybody. The right brain and the masculine tends to be on the right side, left brain, and it’s too much for explain now, but it’s written in chapter four and kind of how this connects to brain biology and you can really trip out on this stuff. But the reason I started looking is because I would see women talk. They would talk, well, you just did this. And I don’t know, for flipped, I’m not sure, but they would gesture on one side when they were talking about home and they would gesture on another side. What side is that? What is that?

Dr. Sarah (30:58):

Okay, I was totally talking my hands when I was gesturing about work and masculine, I was pointing to my left side.

Tami (31:04):

So you have it flipped, which I mean it’s not from the most people. There’s about 5% of people that have it wired a little differently. Most people when I sit and watch them talk, when they talk about home, they will talk about the left side. And when they talk about the outer, they’ll talk about the

Dr. Sarah (31:21):

Rights. Interesting.

Tami (31:23):

It’s a pattern. So anyway, we could go down a rabbit hole for you. And I love this.

Dr. Sarah (31:27):

I’m also neurodiverse, so that could be something because I have ADHD and all. Yeah, but interesting. So interesting.

Tami (31:35):

This is how I started writing about this. I was like, why is this always happening when people are gesturing and talking on this side? And also mother, they would often talk on the left and father they would talk on, and anyway, both have different gender, but we do, if we have a heteronormal family, we tend to code the feminine on her mother and code the masculine on her father. And that’s a whole long story. At any rate, these things have been split in the way that we are. Most of us are living in the western world and they shouldn’t be and it’s not helpful for anybody. And that is why Covid kind of forced our hand a little bit and rerouted things and not perfectly and not for everybody. And there was a lot of problems with privilege and who could be home and other things, but it’s not natural to be away from your home all day the way we do.

(32:20):

If you work in a lot of work structures, it’s really a lot of it’s better to bridge that and go in and out. And it’s both if you’re stuck only at home and you don’t get to go out, which also happened in covid, that’s also a problem. So the masculine, feminine, we need that ebb flow. And one of the things I tried to teach my sons was how to tend a home in different ways. And they all have, as they move into their own home spaces, they’re all able to tend plants. They have plants in their rooms that they’re taking care of and they have ways that they’re cooking and doing things that is part of their home. And it doesn’t matter how we show up to that. Like I said, not everybody has to be a cook and not everybody has to be a gardener.

(33:01):

Of course we have different roles, but some of us, I am a healer and I bring that into my home. If someone’s sick, I’m pulling out the herbs and things. So it’s like how do you tend home? And you should be able to tend yourself, your body and your wellbeing and your hearth and then in your family pick a role. And the more skills we have with that, the more we’re able to bridge the feminine and the masculine. We want to have the outer, the stimulation, the excitement, the going out, the exploring, and we want to have the hearth, and that’s what we need for the repair of our world so we don’t feel so split.

Dr. Sarah (33:35):

Yeah, it’s funny. I have a girl and a boy and I have a husband and in my family, my husband often is the primary parent in the way we divvy up tasks. And he also has a super green thumb and he loves plants. And if anyone’s ever met my husband, he is from Minnesota. I joke that he’s like a viking. He’s like this big. He’s got a big beard. He is big. He loves to fish and he can fix anything and install any, he’s just super masculine in that quote stereotypical thing. And he is such a gentle giant. He’s such a gentle tending father, and he actually really loves being the one that takes the kids to school and picks them up and takes them to doctor’s appointments. And we will joke that we both get annoyed when I get the phone calls from camp in the middle of the day, I need that information to do my job. And I’m irritated that they assume that because I’m the mom, I should be the first to be called, even though on all the forms, his number’s the one that comes first. So I think he has a really comfortable balance between his masculine and feminine energies. And then raising our son. I want that for him too. And this idea of tending to how do we build that skill in every human and every child of the capacity to tend to.

Tami (35:16):

I know.

Dr. Sarah (35:17):

That is underdeveloped and underrated.

Tami (35:20):

A hundred percent. I mean I say this partly because I sit in the realm of the body, and that’s when I started to notice for myself and also everyone coming to see me, that we were kind of missing out on our body care. I mean, people might work out and do things like that, but that’s not the same as really caring for your body. And it was also my own experience of having a child and going, oh wow, I’ve been out of the home for a decade. I don’t even know what to do with this space. So I think it’s something that is so needed because it’s really the secret to our own wellbeing as people and as communities. And there’s no one way, no right way, but I would say there are some stereotypical parts of it, like cooking is one, gardening is another, childcare is another.

(36:04):

Healing arts are another. And so whatever aspect of those you’re drawn to, animal care is another. So if you notice some things in your children, this one really likes to go out and dig in the dirt. This one really likes animals. You just encourage those pieces. And the other part is we model it ourselves. And it doesn’t have to be perfect because we are living in times that call for a lot of different pressure points, but the fact that if each individual that’s in the house that’s an adult has some way that they tend and they show up, that adds up over time. That tending is a vital skill. It’s not just about making an income and going out in the world, but that tending is really a priority. I think making time to bring things to neighbors or help that elder in the neighborhood, those things, they’re kind of old fashioned, but they really matter. They’re part of that community stitching, and I think kids learn a lot from that.

Dr. Sarah (36:56):

Yeah, I love that. I think that’s such a good fan of interest, child following a child’s interests to teach anything. And so if you can look at what your kids’ natural inclinations are to help weave in a way to practice tending in a context that they get and feel good about that speaks to them is a really good, actually, that’s a really good takeaway for me. That’s one thing I can implement right away. And it would be different for both of my kids for sure. My daughter’s really, really funny that you mentioned animals and digging in the dirt because my daughter loves animals and tending to animals would be such an easy thing to lean into. And helping her take on that role in our home too.

Tami (37:47):

Absolutely.

Dr. Sarah (37:48):

Helps me and my husband.

Tami (37:51):

Know how to tend. And it really weaves the community structure back together. This is the feminine, that’s why we don’t even have to genderize it. We can go, oh, it’s a way of being in the world. It’s a way of being in the world that shows you care. And it’s an energetic aspect of caretaking and it also feels really good. The linear pathways. I am a former recovering achievement oriented being, so I was like, all the grades, how far can I get? You’re always trying to get to the next thing. Whereas tending is just, you can do it right away and there’s a reciprocal energy exchange that happens that’s very good for us, and it’s quite different than trying to be good enough. You’re never quite, that’s the masculine and certainly there’s benefits to that kind of movement and that kind of energy, but it’s very different than the more feminine tending and people in this world.

Dr. Sarah (38:46):

I really think that’s such an important point. And I think it’s helpful to think of in terms of when we’re raising our kids, how to teach them these really important skills. And then when we look at ourselves, it’s not uncommon, myself included, but many of the people that I work with in my practice, when I ask them about how I’ll often ask, ask parents who I’m working with, what do you do for play? And they’ll always answer what they do with their kids or something. And I’m like, no, no. What do you do for your own play? And I think we’re talking about something very similar but different, which is what do you do to tend to yourself? And again, if I were to ask that question, I would get a lot of like, well, I try to exercise, but there’s something else that I think you’re really talking about. And if we’ve lost our capacity to really tend to ourselves, what’s a starting when you work with clients? Where do you help people start?

Tami (39:49):

Yeah, I mean for me, I’m really kind of reading their field and their energy and we’re kind of parsing this out, but yeah, I agree. What we’re talking about is something deeper and it’s almost like a Who am I question? But it’s kind of like there’s an aspect of magical child to it. There’s a way in which who we are is kind of being revealed when we’re little. And then if we were in community and being seen, that would be encouraged. And instead we’re kind of routed over to school and routed over to these things and we kind of lose touch with that. So it is a different kind of thing is it’s sort of like where do you show up? Where do you feel seen? What is one of your superpowers? I mean, there might be different avenues to talk about it from. I think I would just, if I were working with someone or I would talking with someone, I would just want to know, do you feel represented in your life besides just filling in the spaces, which we can all fill in the spaces.

(40:39):

And a lot of times it is the women who step up and fill in the spaces, but what is something that makes you feel good that kind of energizes you that you do? And that can be an element of care for others, an element of care for oneself. It’s something that kind of activates you in a way. And I think I always just try to honor where people are doing that. They might not even acknowledge it. That’s why I wrote that love letter to mothers where I’m like, look at all this that you do. And then women go, oh my God, I do. And they start to feel that and show up for that a little bit more. It’s like permission because sometimes when I’m talking among either friends or with women in my office, it’s like they really want to show up. Maybe there’s an aspect, maybe animal care and going in and working with animals is something they’re really passionate about, but they feel pressured to fill in all these other spaces.

(41:30):

So we talk about, I give myself to let the house be messy so that I can write, or that’s how I wrote. I was like, this is last place, this is first place, and kids are in there too. But it’s like I’m setting this down and it’s a permission point of feeds me and how I get to show up so that I’m not leading with shoulds or guilts. And I think that allows us to care for ourselves in a different way. And everybody has those kind of innate superpowers, whether they were encouraged or discourage as kids. I think part of it is pulling that back out and seeing what is it about me that I really like to share and show up as. And that’s a form of care of the self that you allow yourself to kind of blossom in that way and not get lost under the piles of things to do.

Dr. Sarah (42:18):

Yeah. And do you find, because obviously we’re talking a lot about identity and self, self stuff, but you obviously also work very specifically with pelvic floor issues and pelvic health. When you’re doing the work that you do with Holistic Pelvic Care™, are you seeing shifts in the whole picture when people start to do this? How does our body change when we start to find these abilities to tend?

Tami (42:48):

Yeah, it’s kind of interesting. I mean, I would say it’s evolved over the years from starting out as more alignment and muscle and an organ focus, which is still also very important and very beautiful. And then as I would work with the fascia and work with a person’s breath, and then things would happen, they would talk or tears would come or we would find out what maybe when you get into the root, the root is different than the mind. It really tells the truth and it kind of will show you if a woman’s feeling exhausted or if she isn’t really feeling good about how things are going. And it is like you almost can’t hide. And women will come into my office all put together and kind of like, I would never know just talking to them, but we get on the table and I’m working in the root and the truth really comes forward for them.

(43:33):

And so it’s been a way of witnessing that is just much more real where they’re able to share what’s really going on or maybe they’re even realizing for themselves. And so that’s kind of how I’ve learned to listen. So I am listening with them. I would think of myself kind of like a midwife where a midwife comes in and is trying to stay out of the way, but also support so that woman can do what she needs to do with her body. And that’s a little bit what I’m doing where I’m leading them back into this truth space and we’re kind of finding out together. And it just sort of happens organically where sometimes women will be like, wow, I’m just exhausted. And then they realize they really do actually need to rest more or so it can be simple like that or it can be, God, I had that place.

(44:18):

I was going to do my own artwork and it is covered with stuff I haven’t even gotten in there and I am going to prioritize that. Or my work is just bleeding me dry. I am really realizing that in this moment I’ve got to put some different structures in place, some different boundaries in place. It’s things like that. Or I’m not making time for my own body, my own creativity or my partnership. So it’s those kinds of things come forward, I would say, and it’s really from the body, it’s from the more we get centered kind of right into the core, we have more clarity and it’s easy to get distracted from that.

Dr. Sarah (44:58):

If people want to do this work, first of all, how can they connect with you? And also are there recommendations that you have for how do people find someone who does this work locally where they are?

Tami (45:12):

Yes. Well, first of all, my website is wildfeminine.com and on that site I have a lot of places to land for women who are kind of seeking this information. One of the easiest ones is my books, and I’ve put together a recorded book club with each book. That’s a nice way to have my presence and I walk you through the chapters and kind of highlight things. And I do meditation, so it’s a more active book club experience if you want to delve in, but you want some support that’s there. There’s also, I do long distance sessions. I do zoom sessions. Those are available energy sessions. And then there are a list of providers around the country and actually around the world that have studied with me and are on there as a list as Holistic Pelvic Care™ practitioners. Also, I would say just to experience pelvic care, I would encourage everyone listening, if you haven’t had women’s health physical therapy to find a practitioner in your area, you just call a physical therapy clinic and ask if they have a women’s health specialist on staff that does internal work.

(46:12):

You don’t want just exercises like Kegel exercises. The body work is really key. It’s the massage that kind of helps align our muscles and then we can strengthen if we’re just strengthening without that core realignment, it’s like you’re kind of strengthening the imbalance. That’s what I would say about Kegels in a quick thing. So the body work is really wonderful and there’s many, many women’s health PTs. You just have to look a little bit. But I would encourage women to get that internal massage and just feel how it’s clearing out the tension in your jaw. It’s so helpful for your wellbeing.

Dr. Sarah (46:46):

Do you find that there is a barrier to entry with internal massage? Do people find that something that they’re nervous about starting or are there anything that you could give people to put them at ease with what they could expect.

Tami (47:02):

I mean, absolutely. I understand that because I think it’s just we haven’t been educated properly about care of our bodies, to be honest. I mean, I think first of all, you have to understand that the women’s health medical model is patriarchal based. So I have compassion and also I would just say, look at what you think of as normal, like a pap exam with the process you go through with that has been normalized. And I’m not saying shouldn’t. That’s also a good part of your healthcare routine, but it’s only looking for disease. It doesn’t do anything preventive. And the tension and congestion in the pelvic bowl is often the root cause of disease. We want to clear that out. When we have flow in our root, everything flows better, the hormones and it can clear things, even clear infections much more easily. So part of it is just that we have not been properly educated.

(47:45):

So I would just say that, and then I understand it takes trust. It helps if you have word of mouth or if you can go and meet someone. But I would say just try to move through that discomfort because this will serve your wellbeing and your woman’s health for your life and it matters. And pick up one of my books, Wild Feminine, that can also, there’s a whole discussion about it in there and you get more information and more connection to your body. And this is a way to really take care of your female form.

Dr. Sarah (48:19):

Like, when you have a pap smear. If hopefully it’s with OB-GYN, who’s tuned in and respectful. But frankly, the reality is a lot of people are like, oh my God, past music are the worst thing ever and it’s not pleasant or it’s just this horrible thing that you’re going to go over with every year. And I think from what I’m understanding of the work that you do, this is almost like it could be even be a therapeutic new, like a corrective experience almost.

Tami (49:00):

Yes, it’s a repair. And for me, my work is in a beautiful space with cloth sheets and there’s no speculum. There’s no stirrups. I insert one glove finger and it’s like, it might sound weird at first, I think for people especially because oversexualized it, but if you think of someone kind of rubbing your shoulders, it’s kind of like that because the pelvic floor sits kind of like the top of our shoulder blades. It’s a broad swath on each side and it holds a lot of tension. And so when someone is massaging that, it’s a non-sexual massage, it’s kind of almost like having your hip massage from the inside and you just hit these deep points. So you had no idea you had holding in. So that’s why, again, my practice is all word of mouth. I don’t advertise at all. It’s just people come because that person told them, and it’s all sisters sharing and saying, you’ve got to go see this person, and it feels so much better when you clear that out.

(49:54):

So it is, again, it should just be our routine care if we were taught properly. And a lot of what I’m trying to do is teach women what the muscles look like, how they can care for them themselves and even do their own self massage. So there’s more written in Wild Feminine. And my TEDtalk is a good one to tune into. It’s called The Vagina Whisperer. Again, moving from shame to honor in the female body. And I think it’s another good that was done with a very broad base in mind, so people could have different entry points. And you listen to that and you start to think, wow, we really don’t get the care that we need as women. And that’s my activist counter is to actually do the care for us.

Dr. Sarah (50:35):

Yeah, I love that. I’m so grateful I learned so much on this talk, and I am actually really excited to continue to learn more about the work that you do. I cannot think of anyone who wouldn’t benefit from this, like anybody I know.

Tami (50:50):

Pretty much routine care. So many, you don’t need a reason to go. Just basic care is a good one. Also, if you have any pelvic symptoms, a hundred percent postpartum, every woman should get this. I also love working with women post miscarriage. We get no care post miscarriage pretty much. I know because we’ve had one, and this is wonderful body work for that, and just birth trauma, so many passions.

Dr. Sarah (51:13):

Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. You do important work. So I’m grateful you took the time to talk with us.

Tami (51:22):

Sarah, thank you so much for holding space for this kind of work for women. It’s just getting these things out there and sharing with women. It’s where all the information goes is when women share it with each other. So I really appreciate what you do.

Dr. Sarah (51:34):

Yeah, and if you have a woman in your life, share this episode with them because this is the way historically in our evolution, this is how we share women share stories with women, and it is sisters telling sisters, and it’s word of mouth, and it is. This is how we take care of each other as we tell stories, we share stories, and this is so, yeah. Oh, I just got goosebumps thinking about that.

Tami (52:07):

That’s right around the fire we did.

Dr. Sarah (52:10):

Yeah. Okay. So go send this episode out to a sister, anybody that needs to hear this, and then go take care of your body and go take care of yourself, and then fill that cup before you share it with anybody else.

Tami (52:25):

That’s right. You deserve it.

Dr. Sarah (52:28):

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Tami (52:31):

Thank you, Sarah.

Dr. Sarah (52:38):If you enjoyed listening to this conversation, I want to hear from you, share your thoughts and your feedback with me by scrolling down to the ratings and review section on your Apple Podcasts app or whatever app you’re listening on. And let me know what you think of this episode or the show in general. Your support means the absolute world to me, and just a simple tap of five stars can make a real impact in how the show gets reached by parents everywhere. So thank you so much for listening and don’t be a stranger.