The Epidemic of Womb Disconnection
As you begin reading this, take a moment to breathe into your body. Imagine your breath filling your womb space.
As your breath fills your womb space, imagine a beautiful golden light streaming into your womb with your breath. Allow this golden light, this life force energy, to permeate your womb and spread up your spine and into your whole body. Breathe into this energy and visual for a couple minutes and notice how your body feels as you do.
Now that you have connected into the flow of life force energy in your womb, let’s talk about womb disconnection. Have you ever taken time before to breathe into your womb like that? If so, amazing! If not, you’re not alone. The majority of women haven’t learned how to connect to their wombs, and the consequences of that can be seen today in the widespread womb disconnection we see all around us.
The womb is much more than just a physical organ or system. When I refer to the womb, I’m not just referring to the uterus; physically I’m referring to the whole system of uterus, uterine tubes, ovaries, cervix, vagina, vulva. Spiritually, I’m referring to the energetic portal that is the womb. The womb is our direct connection to source and creation. Women have the ability to create life via their wombs - this is an incredible gift. Creating life does not just mean babies - when we are connected to our womb we can use her incredible spiritual power to be creative powerhouses, birthing ideas that can change the world.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where so many women are disconnected from their wombs and don’t understand the gift they have within their bodies. The reasons for this womb disconnection are plentiful. I’m going to go through some of them and offer suggestions to start building a relationship with your womb.
First: birth control and the medical system serve to disconnect women from their wombs. I’ve already written about birth control, so you can read my previous post about that if you’d like a deeper dive. Birth control serves to disconnect women from the womb but cutting off the normal and natural hormonal cycle and implementing a false hormonal state that is designed to mimic pregnancy, essentially making the body think it’s always pregnant. This means that women who are on any kind of hormonal birth control are not ovulating or having proper periods (the withdrawal bleeding that happens is not a real period because without going through an ovulatory cycle, the body does not need to expel the old uterine lining like it does without hormonal intervention). Why is this disconnecting women from their wombs? Because without actually experiencing the natural rhythm of their body, women are missing out on a huge part of the experience that is living in a female body. And yes, some women go on birth control because of painful periods or endometriosis - but if that’s happening, the womb is literally crying out for help and attention. Shutting her down via hormonal birth control is only causing further harm.
And if you think non hormonal birth control (aka the copper IUD) is any better, it’s not. The copper IUD works by creating inflammation, so while a woman may still ovulate with this IUD, her body is living in a constant state of inflammation. And inflammation is a physiological response that something is wrong. So inflammation in the womb, even if it’s caused by “birth control” is an indication that something is wrong - which causes disconnection.
Another way birth control disconnects women from their wombs is that any birth control that impacts the hormonal system is turning off the womb’s innate intuition. One way we see this physiologically is via the type of partners women are attracted to when on hormonal birth control vs when they’re not. When on hormonal birth control, women are attracted to men who are genetically similar to them, which is NOT ideal for reproduction or sexual polarity (aka what causes sexual attraction) purposes. When following her natural hormonal cycles, women are attracted to men who are genetically dissimilar to them, which is much better for reproductive and polarity purposes. The womb is the original oracle and intuitive guide for women. When birth control cuts off her innate oracular abilities, exampled here by the way the hormonal flow of the womb helps women pick out their ideal mates, we are creating massive womb disconnection which impacts us on a large scale. (This always makes me wonder if some of the fertility issues we are seeing in society are related to partners choosing each other when the female partner was on birth control and therefore the womb’s intuition was turned off).
Okay, that’s just addressing birth control. How does the medical system contribute to an epidemic of disconnection from the womb? Well of course, doctors recommending birth control over other holistic options is one way. The rhetoric that women don’t need to have a period for health reasons is another way (the period is a vital sign for women. We need to have them). And surgical intervention is another way that the medical system encourages disconnection from the womb. Surgical interventions are sometimes necessary and life saving. At the same time, it can be true that they should not be used as often as they are.
In the US, the two most common surgeries for women are cesarean sections and hysterectomies. Both womb-related surgeries. Jumping to a c-section when it may not be medically necessary (something that has been written about extensively from people who are much more medically knowledgeable than I, for example this article), or encouraging women to schedule c-sections instead of preparing and trusting the body to go through natural labor and birth - something the female body is designed for, is fostering a society where women don’t trust their wombs or their bodies to do their innate physiological jobs.
As for hysterectomies… the current statistics say that one in three women will undergo a hysterectomy by the time she’s sixty years old. We are fed the message that if you’re done having children, you don’t need your womb. Or, if you don’t want children, have your tubes tied or get a hysterectomy. Or, cut out parts of your womb to make sure you don’t get cancer. Even just writing these sentences out, I am struck again by how crazy these ideas are. The womb is MUCH more than a child-bearing organ. She’s part of the hormonal, spiritual, and energetic body of women. Cutting out the womb is disconnecting women from their physiological hormonal cycles and innate spiritual selves. And while you can replace hormones via HRT and connect into the womb energetically if you do not have one anymore, the point here is that it should not be common for women to have to do that!
Physiologically as well the womb is important for our overall health even as we age. If something’s wrong with the womb (pain, endometriosis, pcos etc), the first, second, third, and so on interventions should be addressing what’s stored in the womb - spiritually, energetically, emotionally, physically (like the toxin-load) - and supporting the body in unwinding, releasing, and healing itself. And then, after that has been done, if we still need surgical interventions, that’s what modern medicine is for. By all means, use it! But the fact that hysterectomy rates are so high is heartbreaking. Women are being physically castrated from their wombs, the source of life force and creative energy within us. This should not be happening.
Second, let’s examine how societal views and rhetoric at large has been instrumental in creating a society where women are disconnected from their wombs.
Let’s start with periods: many girls are taught to be secretive and hide their period when they first start bleeding. This is in contrast to some cultures where it’s celebrated as a rite of passage, and to our own ancestors, however many generations back, who would have celebrated the first period as an important rite of passage as well. Instead, today’s rite of passage is secrecy and hiding. I remember growing up and all of my girlfriends being taught, just like I was, to put their pads in a pocket or hide them somehow when we needed to go to the bathroom to change them out during the school day. And while I’m sure our mom’s gave us tips to make dealing with a period less awkward, I really remember learning this from movies and media at the time. Watching movies where the teenage girls were embarrassed or humiliated for having their periods in some way really shaped how I saw my period for most of my teenage years. Around 19 or 20 I started learning more about my period and decided to break the shame cycle. I started casually mentioning it when I had cramps or needed menstrual products, even around my dad and brothers (who I would never have talked about period stuff in front of previously) until I was comfortable with it.
The shaming of periods that starts in teenage years is unfortunately something that many women don’t grow out of. And that is at least partially due to, again, society. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I must once again point to birth control. The widespread use of hormonal birth control has led to women being told that they can just skip the inconvenience of having a period by skipping their sugar pills or getting an IUD. This has led to the idea of periods and the womb’s monthly cycle as a nuisance. It’s much more common in normal society (which is to say that in my circle I don’t tend to hear this viewpoint, because I attract women into my work/world who want to connect to their wombs; but when I tune into social media on a wider/more general scale I tend to see this) to complain about having a period, to say that it’s so unfair that men don’t have to deal with them, to attach to ideas like, “if men had periods…”.
And, as a side note: we don’t actually know what would happen if men had periods. And honestly, who cares? Having a womb and a monthly period is a gift. It’s a superpower that men don’t have - so I urge you to stop feeling angry that things would be different if men had periods and pull yourself out of the cycle of victimizing yourself to your monthly cycle. The monthly cycle is going to be there no matter what, so you can either ignore it and resent it, creating tightness, anger, and toxicity in your womb space, or you can learn to befriend and appreciate everything your womb does. And that’s really the crux of the issue: women are disconnected from their wombs because they’ve fallen for the traps of hormonal birth control, distrusting their body, and victimizing themselves because it’s “so unfair” that men don’t have to deal with this too.
Another place we see this is with the issue of abortion. I am absolutely pro having the choice to have an abortion if needed. I think it’s essential that women have this choice, but we cannot discount how difficult abortion is energetically. And I do question how the widespread debate around abortion has contributed to women becoming more and more disconnected from their wombs. Why are we fighting so hard for abortion when we would be even better served by focusing that energy on creating a relationship with the womb, her cycles, and her energy? If women were taught womb care and connection from a young age, how often would we even need abortions or plan B pills, or anything like that? My guess is a lot less, because the current system depends on women being disconnected from their womb and cycle, uncertain about when pregnancy is possible, unable to tell when they’re ovulating, and depending on outside medical services to regulate reproduction. Abortion has become such a hot-button issue that you could argue it’s become a distraction from getting to know what’s really important - the power and medicine held in the womb.
Another piece of societal rhetoric that fosters womb disconnection is the idea that without birth control, abortion, and modern medicine, women would have no reproductive freedom. And that’s just not true! Reproductive freedom is available to women as soon as we learn to understand and track our monthly cycle. Pregnancy is only possible around ovulation, which happens once a month, meaning that there are only a few days a month that you can get pregnant in a normal cycle. So reproductive freedom is possible without any outside intervention - it just involves getting to know your own body.
And of course, a major place we see womb disconnection in our world is via fertility. Infertility is so high today - a simple google search shows that roughly 1 in 6 people globally are affected by infertility. That’s a staggering number. And there are many reasons for that number including things like toxic load in the body, pathogenic factors, hormonal factors and so on. If you have struggled or are struggling with infertility, please know that I am not saying the only reason for infertility is womb disconnection. What I am saying is that it is likely one of the reasons. When we live a life disconnected from our womb, shutting off her hormonal cycles with birth control, not understanding when she is and isn’t fertile, not being educated on how to detect ovulation (or turning ovulation off for years via birth control), not spending any time building an energetic or spiritual connection with her, we should not be surprised when she is not ready to get pregnant, when she’s shut off physically and energetically, because we haven’t done anything to nurture her openness.
And here’s the thing: in a healthy world, we would be taught how to tend to our wombs from the moment of our first period, if not before. We would have access to proper womb care to ensure the health of our womb. And we would be taught how to connect to and understand the hormonal and spiritual cycles of the womb, so that we could live our lives in connection to womb instead of shutting her off. So if you weren’t taught any of this when you were younger, that’s not your fault. But it is your responsibility now, as a grown woman, to learn how to be in relationship with your womb.
Your womb is here to be your best friend, your greatest guide and teacher, your inner oracle. But she can’t fulfill that role if you don’t learn how to tend to her and listen to her.
So now, let’s discuss some easy ways to start building a connection with your womb.
Holding your womb and breathing into her (like the practice at the start of this article).
Gentle womb massage (gently move the tissue of your womb, holding places that feel tight or tense and directing breath into your body).
Yoni gazing (sit in front of a mirror and look at your yoni. Take 5-10 minutes to look at your yoni with love + presence).
Yoni Massage (hold your yoni and bring gentle touch to your vulva. See what is alive as you touch your yoni).
Womb breath work (you can follow along with this Youtube video I made a few years ago, demonstrating a womb breath work technique).
Visualizing the womb (for example, an easy place to start is by imagining your womb space being filled with life force energy, and then sitting with that visual and letting it grow and expand in your mind’s eye for a few minutes).
Understanding the anatomy and cycles of the womb (something we discuss in my Womb Mentorships. Send me an email for more info shannon@healingintuitively.com).
Try my “Meet your Womb” Meditation below. This is included in the Womb Wisdom course, so you’ll get a little taste of what’s to come if you join:
In my upcoming article I’ll be discussing the benefits of returning to your womb and sharing some stories about what womb connection looks and feels like.
Have any questions or want to share anything about your womb journey? Leave a comment below!