How to Avoid Manipulating Ourselves and Procrastinating Over Healing Our Vaginismus

I got an excellent question about my vaginismus story from a new member of our Facebook group.

When I was talking about my vaginismus journey, she asked me how I could ignore my condition for so long.

It was such a meaningful question, and so true! How could I ignore it for so long?

And you know what? The answer is pretty simple: because I was in denial.

In this blog, I want to talk more about how I lived with vaginismus without taking any action to cure it. I’m also going to share with you the things I would do differently if I had it again.

Before diving into more detail, let me introduce myself very briefly. 😊

Hi, my name is Petek. I had been living with vaginismus for almost 15 years until I cured myself. Now, I help women living with the same condition, overcome it, so that they can have pain-free penetration and feel much lighter, empowered, and whole.

Look at that! How fabulous this is! Here is my story if you want to find out more about me.

So let’s get back on track!

Here are four questions and answers to dive into how I manipulated myself and procrastinated over healing my vaginismus.

Question#1 How could I ignore my vaginismus for all those years?

The most straightforward answer to this is that I had unknowingly created an environment for denial.

I had two long-term relationships before my current relationship now.

One of them lasted for almost three years and the other, for nearly five.

What’s interesting is that they were both significantly similar to each other. Neither of them sexually attracted to me—neither of them. And even though I loved them, I knew deep down that they were not going to last.

Why did I stay then?

Because it was easy and SAFE.
Because deep down, I hoped that I could have a sexless life forever, so I didn’t need to cure my condition.

Don’t get me wrong; there is nothing wrong with having a sexless life.

But for me, the idea of living without sex was not because I preferred life without it, but rather, because I did not want to have to face my sexuality in case all my worst nightmares about pain and shame would come true. Pretending to want a sexless life was helping me create a comfortable environment of denial that was so cozy and appealing to me.

(This kind of attitude would never last because I was not honest with myself.)

Because I was behaving according to my feelings and thoughts.

Should we trust our feelings and thoughts that much? What would you say?

I’d say, not always. 😊

Question #2 Should we trust our feelings and thoughts that much or are they just the manipulation of reality?

I love this question because it reminds us that it is difficult to see things as clearly as they are.

It’s not that easy to differentiate what we think is real with what is just manipulation!

This is the power of the mind!

When we are living with vaginismus, we may feel like it’s ok not to do anything about curing it.

There can be many reasons for this, and many of us think we will be cured when we:

find the one,
get married,
feel a bit more relaxed,
feel more into sex,

The reality might be a completely different scenario.

Question #3 How can we tell the difference between reality and manipulation then?

We are coming to an important point here!

Being able to see things as clearly as they are, without judging, without any commentary is what we need to do, right? But how so?

By practicing mindfulness

That’ s the exact definition of mindfulness, according to Joseph Goldstein: “Mindfulness is the quality and power of the mind that is deeply aware of what is happening, without commentary and without interference. It’s like a mirror, that simply reflects whatever comes before it.”

So in my case, I could not see how denial was not good for me in the long run at all and how I was procrastinating to work on it, which was getting harder to do so as the time was passing.

So I couldn’t see the real big picture. I couldn’t see my real intention.

The more I pretended not to care about sex, and to live in denial about my condition, the longer I stayed in these relationships.

Even if I was telling myself and my partners that I wanted to overcome it, in reality, there was no sign that I was doing anything accordingly.

And I became the slave of my manipulated mind. I chose to stay in those relationships. As time passed, my fear of sex, which highly associated with pain was growing, and the belief in myself was lessening.

Question #4 How can mindfulness help my vaginismus?

Feeling like a failure, guilty, not worthy, not enough were the attitudes that I was strengthening as I was repeating them over and over again.

These attitudes were connected to my relationship with vaginismus.

But when we practice mindfulness, we learn to create the space to see things as clearly as they are. We learn to see our real intention and what limits us from moving forward.

That’s why mindfulness is a precious practice to see ourselves more clearly and more mindfully, especially when it comes to healing our vaginismus!

Let me emphasize here: Denial and procrastination are the enemies of healing vaginismus.

I remember when I went to the clinics to get support to heal my vaginismus. There was a very thick book where the women with vaginismus had written their testimonies and gratitude for the clinic, helping them overcome vaginismus. Some of these women had been living with it for 10 to sometimes 20 years!

When we are living with vaginismus, most of us tend to believe our conditioning, our fear, our denial, and limit ourselves with them.

That’s why we need to see what’s happening at the moment more clearly!

That’s what we do with mindfulness: gaining clarity and learning new skills.

To cure our vaginismus, we need to gain new attitudes, and we need clarity.

We need to see the vaginismus as a condition, nothing more.
We need to be aware of
- our patterns/habits and how we are treating ourselves in our head: pay attention to when you are:
  - disrespectful
  - blaming
  - judging
  - unappreciative
  - not believing that we are strong enough, or good enough, or worthy enough.
- the sensations in our bodies and how the responses of our bodies are connected to our thoughts and emotions.
We need to transform our habits into healthier ones which serve us better.

Then, working with the dilators will be much more comfortable and consistent, because of the qualities that we just begin to learn.

Now I invite you to think about yourself: where do you want to see yourself five years from now?

Have you already taken the action you needed to take to cure your vaginismus? Or are you still stuck believing that you cannot overcome it?

“Mindfulness is the quality and power of the mind that is deeply aware of what is happening, without commentary and without interference. It’s like a mirror, that simply reflects whatever comes before it.” Joseph Goldstein

You can download my free vaginismus cure guide from here if you haven’t yet.

If you found this article helpful, then come and join our free online community Yes We Can Cure Vaginismus Together.

I talk more about these topics and in more detail.

Let’s meet there. Let’s grow together.

E-mail: petek@yeswecancure.com