By Lauren Mason
At the center of our existence there are fundamental needs – like the need for nourishment, the need for connection, the need for meaning, and the need to create. Sharing our ideas and passions and passing on our loves and joys is one of the most primal needs that we have. We choose to connect and share in many ways, and intimacy can be found in many places. Still, sometimes we feel unfulfilled or unsatisfied, the connection is elusive, or we are unable to create what we want to create. The beauty of yoga practice centered around reproductive health is that it supports these primal needs and increases sense of connection and self understanding. Through yoga practice, we are able to connect with our true self, tune into our intuition, learn to love our bodies, and feel a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment that comes from deep within.
As a new yoga practitioner, I didn’t know what I was seeking in my practice. I didn’t understand that simply being present with my body was the beginning of a spiritual awakening in which I would learn to be content with myself in a way that made me much more approachable and caring. Early in my career, I was drawn to reproductive health. Even before I was certain I wanted to parent a child of my own, I felt a strong urge to support pregnant students. I think now I was drawn in by the barriers pregnancy often removes. There is something simultaneously magical and completely normal about the creation and birth of a child. It connects us to everyone who has lived before us and everyone who will live after us.
As I continued to work with students and couples, I learned that pregnancy was often a difficult time when we need to confront our biggest insecurities, draw on the support of others, and tune into those primal connections that we so often choose to ignore. I started to bring these ideas into practice, knowing that pregnancy was a time when we might be forced to find these connections, but by no means the only time we could explore them. Motherhood has helped me to embrace challenges and welcome support and find new connections and aspects of myself I didn’t know existed. My yoga practice has been with me throughout, increasing my intimacy with myself, which in turn makes it easier for me to connect with others.
This is what I hope to share when I teach yoga for reproductive health – a better sense of connection with our most primal needs, including the need to be loved and accepted by ourselves. The physical aspect of the practice centers around the pelvis – the natural home of the reproductive system, but also the anatomical center of the body. Wonderful benefits can arise that positively impact the whole body when we find a balance of strength and mobility through the pelvis. Increased energy and awareness in this part of the body helps us to feel confident where we often feel most vulnerable. This also can support fertility and bring balance to reproductive issues, including the normal fluctuations of menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause.
My hope and goal with every practice is to invite exploration that helps you to feel a little more at home with yourself, a little more confident, and a little more inspired to love yourself. My hope is that as you experience these things, you will be more able to make the connections you want to make and create what you want to create. Even if you feel that physical reproduction or even sex is not a part of your life, yoga for reproductive health can help you to feel a better sense of well-being, more comfortable in your body, and more connected to your truest desires.