What To Do When You Feel Behind Others After Hearing Their Successful Penetration Stories

Do you also feel unmotivated and left behind when women with vaginismus share their success stories like:

“I had sex, at last!”,
Or “This was my first ever PIV (penetration in the vagina, or penis in vagina) without any pain!”
Or “I jumped up to the largest dilator!”

If so, how does that feel?

What feelings do you experience at that moment?

Are they disappointment, hopelessness, being overwhelmed, emptiness, frustration?

Feeling as though we are lagging behind is one of the most common experiences of our shared humanity, dear, and it’s heavy!

In this blog post, we’ll talk about what to do when we feel left behind after hearing others’ successful penetration stories and how to transform this heavy feeling into an awareness about ourselves that will empower us in our healing journey!

But before we get there, 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!

Let’s continue!

First and foremost, whenever we feel left behind, this attitude is very much connected to our habit of comparing ourselves with others.

Even if we remind ourselves within that moment that, everybody has a different pace to us, it’s still important to recognize that this reminder is not enough to make us feel ok about the timing of our own lives.

This is why we get to actively turn these moments into an advantage for our own good!

So let’s dive into HOW we can make the feeling of falling behind get us ahead!

#1 Stay in tune with your feelings and thoughts when you feel behind

There is a beautiful saying of Pema Chödrön which goes: “Feel your feelings!”.

We tend to jump into the problem-solving mode or feel overwhelmed by our reactions, so we distract ourselves away from our experiences.

From now on, I invite you to observe your thoughts and self-talk as openly as possible by looking at what you say to yourself word for word as though you are extracting a transcript map of your mind.

When I had vaginismus, I’d compare myself immediately whenever I saw a pregnant woman, and I’d find myself saying things like: “Even this woman had sex, Petek, look at you, hurry-up!”

I’d compare her appearance with mine, and my invasive self-talk would continue for a while, then I’d end up pitying myself! That was my cycle, and when you think about how many pregnant women I could possibly see a day, you can also imagine how repeatedly I was in ruminating over these thoughts in my mind and feeling sorry for myself. It was heavy!

In moments like that, engaging with the experience is the key to not getting caught within your ruminations, dear.

And of course, adding some self-compassion can be very helpful!

Look at what you say to yourself and talk to her with compassion as best you can.

Try saying things like:

“I understand that you want to highlight that I also deserve to be able to have sex, but saying it like that is not helping me at all. Let’s take a deep breath and look at what we can do about it together!”

You can choose your own wording, but the point here is learning to recognize your unhealthy self-talk rather than trying to mute its voice as fast as possible so that you can give yourself a chance to befriend it!

The more you actively transform its tone, the more friendly your self-talk will be!

#2 Dive into where you feel behind in life and take a reality check

Let’s get back to the example of hearing successful penetration stories from other women with vaginismus.

So, whenever you read a post or hear a story about it, perhaps you notice yourself saying like:

“Look! Everybody overcomes vaginismus but you!”
“You are still using the same dilator for days now; what’s wrong with you?”
“Everybody else is improving, but you did nothing! You won’t ever make it!”

We can be very harsh on ourselves, right?

We don’t even speak to others that way, but somehow we can be the coldest, angriest, harshest of ourselves!

In fact, these talks say something about us; despite the rudeness of the tone, there is an underlying belief these talks show us.

What are those self-beliefs?

They can be things such as:

You don’t put any effort into overcoming vaginismus,
Or, you find excuses for not doing what you are supposed to do to overcome it,
Or, you always postpone your treatments even if you know deep down that they are the way out of your situation.
Or, you know that you need support, but you find excuses to avoid looking for it!

What are your underlying beliefs trying to tell you?

When you find them, do a quick reality check: Are they the facts or just the story you are used to telling yourself?

In this example, let’s say you notice that your underlying belief is that you don’t put effort into overcoming your vaginismus.

So, ask yourself genuinely, “ Is that true?”.

It might be real, partially real, or not real at all!

But when we do a reality check, this gives us a chance to use a quick feedback sandwich to get motivated.

You can think of this tactic as positive feedback, like two slices of bread at the top and the bottom with a constructive one in between.

It might sound like a bit of corporate jargon 😊 but believe me; it just helps change your perspective!

We are naturally used to picking up mistakes first, with this method, we also create space for celebrating what we have done nicely as well so that getting lost in an “I’m such a failure!” story is much harder to do, therefore motivating us to follow through with our positive intentions and action towards healing our vaginismus.

#3 Understand where you are at and where you want to be in your journey

While doing a reality check, ask yourself what you have done about it!

For instance, with the earlier example, we can ask:

What have I done to overcome this till now?

You might realize that :

You went to/looked for a gynecologist to get a diagnosis.
Or, you became a part of vaginismus communities on social media to understand and hear more about the condition.
Or you purchased a dilator kit to practice with.

At that moment, celebrate what you’ve done dear, because wherever you are at, whatever you’ve done till now was not easy, so let’s give ourselves enough credit to say “Yes, I did this!” rather than “I only did this!”

Then ask yourself, “what didn’t work well?”.

Your answer might be:

I see what I am supposed to do as tasks, so I don’t feel motivated to accomplish them,
I feel depressed quite often, so I can’t do things consistently,
It’s hard for me to believe that I can overcome it, so I quit easily,

If you are a visual or tactile learner, then writing your answers would be very helpful. If you are an auditory learner, maybe recording your answers and listening to them later would help you engage with your experience more deeply. Try out different methods of taking note of your findings.

Then lastly, ask yourself, “how can I meet my needs?”.

What would help you to not see them as tasks so that you could feel more motivated? Or, what motivates you to accomplish tasks?
What would help you feel more balanced and centered so that you don’t have as many mood swings?
What would make you think that you can overcome it? What would support you to not quit so easily?

Here is what we can do overall, dear, we can try to help ourselves as best we can, with kindness and compassion.

So whenever we feel behind, engaging with and being willing to understand ourselves on a deeper level can be a new way of responding to our “feeling behind” attitude, my lovely friend.

Then as we practice this new way, we will start to believe that we are the heroine of our own lives, dear, not others!

“We are the hero of our own story.”

Mary McCarthy

You can download my free vaginismus overcoming 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