How to Open Our Hearts to Others While Living With Vaginismus

One of the most overwhelming and painful experiences we face when living with vaginismus is opening our hearts to others and hearing them wholeheartedly.

It is already very challenging to talk about our condition with our partners, and even more difficult learning to listen to them – carefully and with full attention – without being overwhelmed by what they might say.

The more we struggle to communicate properly, the more we avoid these conversations, making us more distant from our partner.

In this post, we’ll uncover how to communicate with our partners with open hearts while living with vaginismus, without putting ourselves down. Giving us the chance to strengthen the relationship we have with our partners while empowering us with the skills we need to heal our vaginismus.

But before we get to that, are you new here? Then you’ll have to check out these other helpful blogs that I’ve written to help you overcome your condition.

and of course, you should join our EXCLUSIVE Facebook Community “Yes We Can Cure Vaginismus Together” by clicking here!

Oh and, you can download here your FREE Vaginismus Cure Guide based on my personal experience and research!

So let’s get started, shall we?

Let’s imagine something different: let’s say that you have a male partner you fall in love with (you may not have a partner currently, it’s OK, but let’s just imagine you have one).

Oh and, just a quick note: I overcame my vaginismus when I was single, so don’t worry if you are single dear. (You can read my story from here)

Now, let’s imagine that you don’t have vaginismus, and your partner can’t get or keep his penis erect long enough for sexual intercourse.

You try over and over again. But nope!

You go to a specialist, and he gets diagnosed with erectile dysfunction.

(By the way, this condition is pretty typical for males, maybe more than what you’d think.)

Try to think about how embarrassing this condition would be for him. For many, this reality is too difficult to embrace, talk about or accept.

He might have been thinking that he was;

not NORMAL,
or broken,
or a failure.

Does that sound familiar to you?

What if I asked you; how would you feel about it as his partner?

Would you see him as a failure as well?
Would you think that he couldn’t do his DUTY as a partner?
Would you think that he couldn’t GIVE you ENOUGH?

Or my dear reader,

Would you see this as a condition and not something that identifies him?
Would you try to support him through his healing journey?
Would you like to feel as though you were both in this together?

Ok, time to get back to reality (sort of): Now, imagine that you still have vaginismus, and your imaginary loving and supporting partner doesn’t have any conditions.

Now, think about how you see your vaginismus.

What are your assumptions that your partner might have been thinking about you, or vaginismus, or the relationship?

Is there any way to ask your partner how they feel about this condition with the intention of listening to them?
Is there any way to communicate non-violently, to hear and understand each other more.
Is there any way to recognize how we set our boundaries?

Talking about vaginismus can be a very difficult conversation.

There are many reasons for that. However, we still need to communicate wholeheartedly with our partners, especially while living with vaginismus.

First and foremost, the key to getting through any open talk is to be mindful of what’s genuinely going on within us .

Doing this helps us realize;

the way we feel about ourselves,
where we set our boundaries,
and how we view this condition

So, let’s dive into those 3 points!

#1 Understanding how we feel about ourselves

What do we feel about ourselves? It is incredibly important to know!

Not surprisingly, we don’t always feel very positive about ourselves.

We continuously criticize, judge, complain about how we look, what we do, what we think, and how we feel.

We don’t behave like that just because we are living with vaginismus.

These attitudes are inherent habitualized behaviors many of us as human beings have we repeated over and over again until they become stronger.

And you know why they become stronger? Because we ARE NOT AWARE OF THEM! We don’t RECOGNIZE THEM!

It’s important to remember that we can’t transform anything that doesn’t serve us for the better unless we can see them.

The more we get to know ourselves, the clearer we’ll see what our triggers are. This will make us more conscious of those moments when we take things too personally.

With that said, it gets easier to differentiate between what our partner says as crossing our boundaries, versus our personal triggers creating uncomfortable space in the conversation.

So, let’s talk about boundaries a bit more.

#2 Setting boundaries in our relationships

I want to highlight here that it’s tremendously important to be mindful of where we set our boundaries in the relationships not only with our partners but also with our other loved ones.

While living with vaginismus, just because we tend to feel less worthy or not as loveable, it gets harder to determine what is acceptable and what is not.

I completely understand that!

But the more we get in touch with our emotions, reactions, and thoughts, the clearer we understand where WE have SET our boundaries. showing us what we have been allowing to happen to our lives.

Once you can see these lines, it gets clearer if you feel as though it is acceptable or not, my dear.

So maybe our boundaries are very firm, and it’s tough for our understanding partners to come along with us to walk in this healing journey, or very loose that the relationship becomes very toxic, which gets harmful for us.

For either way, we need to be more mindful, and we need to cultivate the belief that WE ARE WORTHY, dear.

#3 Understanding how we see vaginismus

For a person who has never lived with this condition, vaginismus can be just a condition. It might be a very interesting condition also; hard to understand, right?

But for a woman who has been or is still living with it, it is an entirely different story.

We need to become more aware of

how we see vaginismus,
how we identify ourselves with it,
what feelings are associated with it

Are they:

guilt,
shame,
unworthiness?

Again, it’s hard to transform any beliefs or conditioning if we don’t look at them first.

That’s why mindfulness and loving & kindness practices are tremendously important in our vaginismus journey, dear.

We learn how to create a safe space to listen to ourselves so that we learn to hear, not only us but our loved ones too.

So we cultivate a skill to focus on hearing each other genuinely while opening our hearts, rather than getting lost in the thoughts or stories that we have believed.

And that, my dear, helps us to strengthen our relationship not only with our partners, also with ourselves too.

“The only reason we don’t open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don’t feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with.

To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else’s eyes.” Pema Chödrön

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