Ground Floor: on vaginismus, vulvodynia, and other ways we brace
Sep 4, 2026 · 32 min · 8 segments
A deep, thorough return to vaginismus and vulvodynia both understood as bracing. Here we discuss why we have to work not just physically but holistically with the body. Vaginismus is held in the…
Naomi GaleHost
It's like you want to interview the doctors, you want to interview the physiotherapists.
I literally had somebody reply, go, okay, so are you a physiotherapist? I'm like, no, I am not a physiotherapist.
If you follow me for a while, then you know that I had an attack in my own hometown on a group of women, sea swimmers, which I write about in my first book.
as an afterward on what happened um soon after this book was published I had an attack from these women they actually harassed me to the point where I had to have a crime reference number because I'm not a gynecologist I'm working with women and they labeled me a predator amazing I just think that it's like this endless attack on what I do how do I hold myself and keep going I don't really know to be honest at times and today was this morning before recording this It was a low low because I'm trying to just do so much at the same time.
But also I'm in this kind of like birthing process where I've had this long break.
And I literally was like, I am so much more right now and I need to just keep birthing what I'm birthing.
And I need to keep focusing on the work because the more I watch and witness what's happening, the more I'm frustrated.
So for example, a really good example of this is like, like I keep seeing, so I reached out to this woman who's like gone her, like got a sub stack now on basically on pelvic floor and how she continuously wets herself.
But she's also, somebody who writes as a journalist for this work and I was like amazing like let's let's talk about how amazing the work is of working with the fascia within the vagina to tend and heal the pelvic floor I'm a girlie who used to piss myself and shit myself and I don't anymore and I done quite a lot of the work but also none of it supported me in a way that the work that I do supported me And so I'm like, let's talk about the fact that that work is the work, in my opinion, and with the opinion of many women who have worked with me.
At the same time, it's not a rejection of the other work that exists, because a lot of the women that work with me will have done other work or will continuously do other work alongside of it.
But I find it fascinating how sometimes even a woman that works with me will have an amazing breakthrough, then come and sit with me and be like, well, I don't wet myself anymore.
Oh, but it must be because of this X, Y, and Z. It's almost like they don't want to believe that it's the work.
And I just sit there and I find it amazing because I just sit there and I'm like, I'm not even going to, I don't even insert myself into that conversation of being like, well, you don't think it's the work that we've been doing in this space that after like all these years and suddenly there's a change, you're not going to say that it's that.
Because as a society, we just don't want to believe that something so basic, something so simple could actually be a huge breakthrough and also because if we're not willing to sit with that basic bitch approach to healing then there won't be the breakthrough in the gift that it offers because we complicate it we over complicate it and we and and not necessarily consciously but subconsciously the suffering is where we're at and the suffering is where we'll sit until we're in like there's a really beautiful diagram that I've got in my book on the themes of consciousness.
And when we sit in shame, or we sit in those lower themes like fear, those themes that we exist in are basically what we see the world through, the lens that we see the world through.
If we're willing to sit in those, because that's where we're at, It's difficult to then like just change the lens and be like, well, now I'm not feeling the shame.
It's like you want to interview the doctors, you want to interview the physiotherapists.
I literally had somebody reply, go, okay, so are you a physiotherapist? I'm like, no, I am not a physiotherapist.
If you follow me for a while, then you know that I had an attack in my own hometown on a group of women, sea swimmers, which I write about in my first book.
as an afterward on what happened um soon after this book was published I had an attack from these women they actually harassed me to the point where I had to have a crime reference number because I'm not a gynecologist I'm working with women and they labeled me a predator amazing I just think that it's like this endless attack on what I do how do I hold myself and keep going I don't really know to be honest at times and today was this morning before recording this It was a low low because I'm trying to just do so much at the same time.
But also I'm in this kind of like birthing process where I've had this long break.
And I literally was like, I am so much more right now and I need to just keep birthing what I'm birthing.
And I need to keep focusing on the work because the more I watch and witness what's happening, the more I'm frustrated.
So for example, a really good example of this is like, like I keep seeing, so I reached out to this woman who's like gone her, like got a sub stack now on basically on pelvic floor and how she continuously wets herself.
But she's also, somebody who writes as a journalist for this work and I was like amazing like let's let's talk about how amazing the work is of working with the fascia within the vagina to tend and heal the pelvic floor I'm a girlie who used to piss myself and shit myself and I don't anymore and I done quite a lot of the work but also none of it supported me in a way that the work that I do supported me And so I'm like, let's talk about the fact that that work is the work, in my opinion, and with the opinion of many women who have worked with me.
At the same time, it's not a rejection of the other work that exists, because a lot of the women that work with me will have done other work or will continuously do other work alongside of it.
But I find it fascinating how sometimes even a woman that works with me will have an amazing breakthrough, then come and sit with me and be like, well, I don't wet myself anymore.
Oh, but it must be because of this X, Y, and Z. It's almost like they don't want to believe that it's the work.
And I just sit there and I find it amazing because I just sit there and I'm like, I'm not even going to, I don't even insert myself into that conversation of being like, well, you don't think it's the work that we've been doing in this space that after like all these years and suddenly there's a change, you're not going to say that it's that.
Because as a society, we just don't want to believe that something so basic, something so simple could actually be a huge breakthrough and also because if we're not willing to sit with that basic bitch approach to healing then there won't be the breakthrough in the gift that it offers because we complicate it we over complicate it and we and and not necessarily consciously but subconsciously the suffering is where we're at and the suffering is where we'll sit until we're in like there's a really beautiful diagram that I've got in my book on the themes of consciousness.
And when we sit in shame, or we sit in those lower themes like fear, those themes that we exist in are basically what we see the world through, the lens that we see the world through.
If we're willing to sit in those, because that's where we're at, It's difficult to then like just change the lens and be like, well, now I'm not feeling the shame.
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