Our Vaginismus Story Needs To Be Shared With People Who Are Able To Listen Wholeheartedly

One of our fundamental needs, especially when we are living with vaginismus, is being listened to wholeheartedly.

Listening can be a priceless skillset when done :

with empathy,
wholeheartedly,
withholding a safe space

Even reading these words creates a sense of kindness, care, and love in me, what about you?

When we aren’t listened to properly it can turn into a very frustrating experience and can lead to a feeling of shame.

We talked about shame here in another post: Why Do We Need To Be Mindful To Heal Our Vaginismus?

According to a nursing scholar, Teressa Wiseman, who studied professions where empathy was relevant, there are four qualities of empathy: (You can click HERE to see the article)

See the World as others see it
Non-judgmental
Understanding another’s feelings
Communicate the understanding

Brene Brown summarizes it simply as “Empathy is feeling with people.” And she adds, “The truth is, rarely, can a response make something better, what makes something better is connection.”

Empathy is all about CONNECTION, not only with the others that we are listening to but within ourselves, too.

You know why? Because while listening with empathy, we need to connect with something in us that recognizes that feeling already. And this is a very HUMAN feeling!

Then, while sharing our stories about vaginismus, being listened to with empathy makes us feel:

cared for,
safe,
NORMAL!

That is why it is so important to be apart of social groups of people who are experiencing the same conditions as you during your healing journey.

I care a lot about the importance of sharing our stories for three reasons:

1. CONNECTION

It helps us to connect with ourselves through the difficulties of vaginismus that we face, rather than ignore or pretend that they don’t exist.

2. AWARENESS

As we connect with ourselves, we become more aware of our emotions, and most importantly, the meanings of them that we put through the lenses of our minds.

3. BALANCE

As we connect and become more aware of what we are carrying as a burden, then we feel relieved. And that relief will bring us a sense of balance.

But of course dear, the importance of storytelling and sharing during our healing journey is not enough to overcome our vaginismus.

We need to or let me rephrase it; we HAVE TO work on it.

Why do we have to put a deliberate effort into healing our vaginismus?

In order for us to properly be prepared for our successful healing journey we have to:

Know how to deal with difficult emotions while living with vaginismus, when we are aware.
Learn how to get back to feeling normal whenever we tend to feel uncomfortable.
See the difference between vaginismus as just a condition and the stories we have created around it.
To focus on the physical practices of our healing journey with CONSISTENCY.

As we are learning these “how to’s”, we are transforming our habits!

That’s why mindfulness practices are very fundamental in our healing journey.

When we face our imperfection, then we need to experience letting go of perfection,
When we face our conditionings and beliefs, then we need to experience empathy towards ourselves,
When we face our worries and fears, then we need to experience accepting and embracing them.

So, as the transformation begins naturally through our mindfulness experiences, we need to keep putting a deliberate effort into committing to your healing journey.

Otherwise, it can take YEARS to overcome it!

I know it because it took YEARS for me. You can find my story HERE if you want to know more about it.

When I was living with vaginismus, I was always using vaginismus as an excuse for what was happening in my life.

And I was feeling sorry for myself very often.

That was my number one pattern: feeling sorry for myself.

It’s completely different from being compassionate towards myself.

With this feeling, I carried lots of judgments and worries.

And my number one worry was losing my health.

I had and still have some non-cancer mass/fibroadenomas in my breasts from the age of 15, which I’m very used to now.

Here, I’ll not go back to my childhood or past traumas and experiences about that, but the thing is I’ve had this fear of losing my health for a very long time.

And that fear always ended up feeling sorry for myself. I never missed it!

I repeated that feeling over and over again so much that it became my favorite habit 😊

Then I got my first gynecological exam when I was 30.

The doctor diagnosed another non-cancer mass on my womb this time.

And as you can imagine, I was DEVASTATED by this news.

Just after a millisecond of hearing that, following thoughts came into my mind:

what if I lose my womb,
what if I can’t give birth,
what if I can’t feel like a woman ever,

Then in another millisecond, those thoughts turned into blaming; feeling unworthy, shameful, I’d tell myself:

You deserved that, Petek!
If only you were NORMAL, then you wouldn’t get diagnosed this late! Bravo!
That’s just your mistake! YOU ARE A MISTAKE!

I still get goosebumps from the thoughts, even while I’m writing this. I didn’t realize how hateful I had become towards myself.

I didn’t know that I could hate myself that much!

But I did!

We all do, don’t we?

It’s just happening with or without us knowing!

There is a beautiful saying from Jon Kabat-Zinn:

“Look at other people and ask yourself if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about them.”

We can apply this for ourselves, too: do we see ourselves genuinely as we are, or are we just our thoughts about ourselves?

So if we know how deeply important it is to be listened to with empathy, we need to ask; “are we listening to ourselves empathetically?”

Are we listening to ourselves carefully, with full attention and without judgment?

Are we listening to ourselves with an open heart and feeling safe while doing it?

Wouldn’t it be a gift to be able to say YES to each of these questions, dear?

Wouldn’t it be something priceless that is given from us to ourselves?

Then let’s choose to do it NOW!

Let’s start to transform our habits which aren’t serving us into the healthier ones that do!

And let’s overcome your vaginismus, TOGETHER!

“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive”

Brene Brown

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, if you haven’t yet.

I talk more about these topics and in more detail.

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

E-mail: petek@yeswecancure.com