Endometriosis, Pelvic Pain, and the Body’s Need for Safety
There are moments in practice when a single phrase opens something quietly but unmistakably.
Recently, while taking a class with Tias Little, I heard him speak of our uniquely personal connection to the boundless, incomprehensible source that sustains all things. He spoke of remaining loyal to the inner voice that calls us to live with authenticity and resolve. And he described practice as a way of yoking ourselves to an all-pervading power.
Something in me immediately recognized the depth of what he was pointing to.
Then later, he used the phrase “emotional congestion.”
The moment I heard it, I thought of endometriosis.
Not as a simplistic explanation.
Not as a reduction of a complex physical condition into metaphor.
But as a meaningful and compassionate lens through which to contemplate what so many women’s bodies may be carrying.
Because the pelvis is not just a physical structure. It is also a place of holding.
A place that braces.
A place that protects.
A place that stores and organizes around survival.
For many women living with endometriosis, the pelvic region can come to feel like more than an area of symptoms. It can feel like a place of chronic guarding, inflammation, pain, tension, and deep sensitivity. And when I heard the phrase emotional congestion, I found myself wondering:
What has this part of the body been holding?
What has gathered here over time?
What has not been fully met, supported, expressed, grieved, or released?
This reflection also brought me to the root chakra, often associated with safety, attachment, belonging, and security. The root is connected with our earliest experiences of being held in life. It touches the foundational questions of the nervous system and the body:
Am I safe?
Am I supported?
Do I belong here?
Can I rest?
Can I trust life enough to soften?
These are not small questions.
And they are not only spiritual questions. They are embodied ones.
When there has been stress, fear, instability, disconnection, or early environments where the body learned to brace rather than rest, that pattern may not simply disappear. The body adapts. It organizes. It protects. It carries.
This is one of the reasons I believe healing for women with endometriosis cannot be reduced to symptom management alone. The body is not merely malfunctioning. It may also be communicating through layers of pain, protection, memory, and unmet need.
Later in the class, Tias mentioned that we begin practice on the floor in order to loosen attachments.
He was speaking physically, and yet I immediately felt the deeper truth of it.
To begin on the floor is not only to prepare the muscles and joints. It is also, perhaps, to let the whole being experience support before effort.
The floor holds us.
It asks nothing from us.
It meets the body beneath all performance, all striving, all uprightness.
And in that contact with the ground, something can begin to soften—not only in the tissues, but in the nervous system, the emotional body, and even the unseen places within us that have learned to grip tightly in order to endure.
What if beginning on the floor is also a way of loosening attachments throughout all the sheaths of the body?
The physical body.
The energetic body.
The emotional body.
The wisdom body.
The deeper self that longs to remember its connection to something greater.
What if the floor is where we begin to loosen not only muscular tension, but identification with bracing, over-efforting, fear, and survival?
For women with endometriosis, this feels especially meaningful to me.
Because so much of living with pain involves holding on.
Holding on through symptoms.
Holding on through confusion.
Holding on through appointments, fear, dismissal, and flare-ups.
Holding on through the exhausting effort of trying to function while the body is crying out for care.
To begin on the floor is a different kind of invitation.
Before rising, be held.
Before effort, receive.
Before fixing, listen.
Before pushing toward healing, let the body feel that it does not have to carry everything alone.
This is part of what I believe women in pain so deeply need.
Not more pressure.
Not more force.
Not another message telling them to push through, stay positive, or override what the body is saying.
But a place to come closer to the ground.
A place where holding can soften.
A place where pain is not rushed past.
A place where the body is met with reverence, curiosity, and care.
Endometriosis is a complex condition with real physical consequences. And yet alongside the medical reality, I believe there is also profound value in asking deeper questions about what the body has endured, what the pelvis may be protecting, and what support might allow the whole being to begin unwinding.
Perhaps this is part of healing:
not forcing openness,
but becoming supported enough that guarding is no longer the only option.
Sometimes healing begins at the floor.
Sometimes it begins when the body feels held enough to loosen what it has been carrying.
And sometimes the path forward is not in rising above the body, but in coming back into relationship with it—slowly, honestly, and with compassion.
That is where another way begins.
About the yoga practice referenced in this reflection
My understanding of this practice has been shaped in part by my study of SATYA — Somatic Awareness Training for Yoga Attunement through Prajna Yoga with Tias Little. SATYA is described by Prajna Yoga as a somatic practice that builds mindfulness through movement and is done largely on the floor, using sliding, gliding, stretching, unwinding, and core-building movements to open new pathways of perception and feeling.
Learn more: Prajna Yoga’s SATYA page and course information are here.
SATYA is Prajna Yoga’s “yin” style practice. All the movements are done on the floor in a flowing fashion, without force. The SATYA movements cultivate inner listening and heighten proprioceptive awareness. This awareness is the body’s innate intelligence. By increasing our capacity for sensory awareness, we become more sentient, wakeful beings in the world. The exercises are non-weight bearing and involve sliding, gliding and circular movements to reduce myo-fascial holding in the body.
