If there’s one health complaint I hear from women regularly, it’s that they’ve been diagnosed as having fibroids.
Some women might only have one or two, while others might have literally dozens of them.
And for the women who do have invasive procedures to clear them out of the uterus, the fibroids usually return within months, often more severely.
Shockingly, the International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology published a review on fibroids in 2017, claiming that:
70% of women will have fibroids.
That means about three out of every four women will experience fibroids in their life time.
What shocks me more, is that fibroids are responsible for 33 percent of all gynaecological hospital admissions, and are the number one reason for hysterectomy in America.
Now, ideally we don’t want to be cutting out our most womanly parts, ok??!!
As that leads to a whole gamut of other problems… but I’ll save that for another blog…
Hence I decided to write this blog on fibroids, to share:
- Exactly what a fibroid is
- How to heal fibroids naturally, so you don’t have to experience pain, symptoms, or invasive procedures
- How to regain your fertility.
OK, let’s begin…
What is a fibroid?
A fibroid is a benign (non-cancerous) tumour of the uterus.
That means it’s not life threatening, however it can lower your ability to get pregnant, lead to miscarriage if you do manage to conceive, cause all sorts of pelvic pain, heavy and irregular bleeding (which can cause anaemia and fatigue), and ultimately, is not a healthy pelvic state to carry around with you each day.
Sometimes the fibroid – due to its position – pushes into another organ – such as the rectum or bladder – which can cause urinary incontinence and other issues.
In worse case scenarios, if the fibroids are growing quickly, if a woman’s hormones are in flux – as is the cases around menopause – or if the woman is experiencing a lot of stress, she can develop haemorrhaging from the fibroids.
You see, part of the reason our menstrual flow stops at the end of our period, is thanks to muscular contractions of the uterus.
If there are fibroids, they can interfere with this, resulting in longer, heavier bleeding, which is extremely depleting for a woman.
The thing to understand is this:
If you bleed heavily, there is something out of balance (maybe fibroids, maybe something else), that needs your attention.
You don’t need to suffer in silence.
Let me say this again:
Heavy bleeding is not normal, and can be healed.
OK, let’s move on…
During pregnancy, because hormone levels are really high, pre-existing fibroids can grow rapidly.
The problem with this, is that if they start to degenerate (due to a low oxygen supply), this can sometimes cause the uterus to contract, and ultimately result in a premature delivery.
That said many pregnancies are just fine.
But it can be beneficial to work on healing the fibroids – so you have a super healthy uterus – before you conceive, so that there is less chance of complications.
All of that said…
Some women don’t even know they’ve got fibroids, until a routine pelvic examination.
How much pain or stress fibroids cause you, really has to do with the size and the place they decide to hang out.
For fibroids grow in all sorts of locations on and within the uterine wall itself, or in the uterine cavity.
When these fibroids are measured in Western Medicine, they’re often compared to the size of the uterus at various stages of pregnancy.
For example, ‘a fibroid the size of a three month old foetus.’
The largest I’ve heard of was likened to the size of a watermelon!!
These kinds of large fibroids stretch the uterus to the point that a woman can look 4-5 months pregnant.
Not usually a look women seek outside of pregnancy!
So what are these fibroids made of?
Collagen, which is a type of connective or fibrous tissue.
Fibroids are usually hard, white gristly masses.
They tend to be more common in African American women than in Caucasians, and premenopausal woman have a higher risk than postmenopausal women.
It’s true that fibroids can run in the family, however, is it also true that if you get to the emotional root cause of the fibroids, they can completely clear up and not come back.
This is about breaking the emotional and belief patterns that have been embedded into your cells, so you can change the way the cell responds to life.
In Chinese Medicine, fibroids are considered to be the result of a deficient Spleen.
When the Spleen is not balanced, it will struggle to transform our food into nutrients and energy, and the remaining liquids and solids will accumulate and form dampness.
The dampness stagnates and becomes phlegm, which congeals into a tumour in the uterus, known as a fibroid.
Therefore, as part of any treatment plan for fibroids, you want to look at helping the Spleen come back into harmony, so there is less phlegm in the body.
At the same time, because there is stagnation, you also want to help the uterus cleanse itself properly, so the accumulated mucous and phlegm isn’t getting stuck to the uterine walls.
What to do about your fibroids….
If they’re not causing you any significant issues, they can be left to be, and checked out every six months to a year to monitor their growth.
It’s not uncommon for them to form during a period of greater stress, an emotionally demanding time, during pregnancy or the year or so before menopause.
The fibroid can start to break down or shrink when it outgrows its blood supply.
This process can be a little painful, as the nerves deep inside the tissue register this lack of oxygen as ‘pain’.
But this sensation usually passes within a week or so.
Your time of month will also impact fibroid growth.
While our hormones are in cyclical movement, if your hormones are more extreme due to an imbalance in the body, it’s very normal for fibroids to peak in size at the time of ovulation, and just before your period begins.
Fibroids can tend to grow quite quickly during the years just before menopause – when hormonal levels can go a little crazy – but often shrink dramatically after menopause.
The important thing about fibroids, is that in most cases, they are not a medical emergency.
Unfortunately, there is often a tendency for doctors to fill women with fear and make them think they need to rush into surgery.
This is rarely the case.
The most common problem with fibroids is their tendency to grow and cause bleeding and/or pain.
But if you’re willing to look at the underlying causes of the fibroids – the emotional and lifestyle issues that are contributing to their growth – then usually they either go away on their own, or can melt away with the help of Pelvic Steam Therapy or a practice that works directly with the reproductive organs such as Yoga for the Vagina.
In fact, I regularly have ladies from my Yoga for the Vagina program email me, saying how – after establishing a regular practice – their fibroids have either disappeared completely or significantly reduced.
Karen-Lea from Australia shares her experience here:
‘THANK YOU Tamra!!
In 2015, I was diagnosed with over 30 uterine fibroids, some the size of 50 cent pieces.
Not long after, I attended a festival with a wonderful information session called Yoga for the Vagina.
I met Tamra and purchased a jade egg.
I started using it straight away.
Initially, I used it every chance I had, weekly at a minimum.
I did the exercises Tamra taught us.
After 6 years, I am still using my egg regularly.
I finally had new tests done recently and discovered my fibroids are virtually gone.
I am sure they have been gone for quite some time.
I have 5 very small ones left. I credit the disappearance of them to my jade egg, completing Tamra’s courses: Remarkable Relationships and Sexual Self, and doing regular meditation to clear my fibroids.
I am now motivated to use my egg more regularly again to target those last few fibroids, plus you get a few other benefits your partner will thank you for. :)’
Getting to the root cause of the fibroids.
It’s important when working with any body complaint or symptom, that we look at the underlying conditioning and emotions that created the issue in the first place.
For that is the way our body communicates to us; through symptoms, emotions and feelings.
Any body complaint has a message for us, and if we’re willing to listen to it and heed it’s advice, then we can not only heal the problem, but ensure it doesn’t return.
If we take a purely physical approach to our healing, then in most cases, if you do manage to heal the issue, it will return.
Why?
Because the physical issue is the symptom.
The symptom of a deeper psychological problem.
That’s not to say you’re crazy!
It’s simply an indication that you’re holding onto some beliefs, ideas, emotions and/or traumas that are not serving you.
And in order to allow a full healing – on all levels – to occur, you need to look at the emotional root cause.
So with that said, there are some common emotions and beliefs that often go hand-in-hand with women who have fibroids.
Let’s look at those, shall we?
Our uterus – or womb – where the fibroids are present, is always related to mothering, creativity and growing and birthing our babies and/or projects.
When a woman with fibroids is willing to deeply reflect on her life, she usually realises that she is not tapping into her creative centre, or not making time to allow her creative intentions and projects to be birthed.
Often it will usually be mothering OR creative projects (but sometimes both).
Hence to say, it’s very common to experience fibroids when you’re pouring your energy into things that are not serving you, at the expense of creating space for your creative desires and wishes and yearnings.
For many women, they’re experiencing an inner conflict around how to spend their time.
There may be a pull to earn money in a job they don’t love, at the expense of following their true creative passions.
Or perhaps they might find there is a relationship or situation that is cramping their creative expression, or that is not supporting their yearning to be a mother.
Perhaps it’s that you feel the need to work, when really there is an innate call to be home caring for your child.
We live in a world where this is mounting pressure for women to be like men and be productive all month round, all year round, without taking consideration of the fact that women are cyclical beings, who need to honour that cycle.
Rest when they bleed.
Step into their productive powers when they ovulate, and so forth.
You can read more about the important of honouring your period in this blog: The spiritual power of menstruation.
Women are expected to do it all.
But the truth is, carrying a baby, birthing a baby, nurturing a baby and giving oneself the gift of mothering – in whatever capacity you feel called – is a birthright.
It takes immense energy, and we – as women – cannot be expected to ‘do it all’.
Maybe you think you can do it all – and you have a part of you that wants to ‘prove’ that you can do it all.
But the truth is, this simply isn’t healthy.
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from my own son and my mothering journey, it’s that mothering requires a LOT of time and energy, and is a sacred time in one’s life that deserves to be honoured and respected.
On the same token….
Maybe it’s not mothering your uterus is calling for, but the the opportunity to be creative in some form.
To pour your energy into a particular creative project.
If we look at what fibroids actually are, they’re these little chunks that are taking up space in your uterus.
In the same way, when a woman has fibroids, she will have things in her life – hindering her – getting in the way of her expressing and engaging fully in her creativity.
When your life is full of things that drain and exhaust you, there is no room for mothering or being creative.
What I’m saying, is that your lack of space in your life for your creative projects, is manifesting by way of fibroids, taking up space in your uterus.
Given your uterus is the home of your creativity – your birthing space – it makes sense that you need to both clean out your uterus AND clean out your life.
Make more space for creativity, so there is less space for the things in your life that are not serving you, including those fibroids!
Surgery or fibroid ablation alone do not change the bodily patterns that invited the fibroids to grow in the first place.
If the underlying emotional issues and energetic patterns of the fibroids are not dealt with, then it’s almost guaranteed that more fibroids will return.
So healing fibroids really is about your willingness to take responsibility for your own healing.
It’s not at all uncommon for a woman with fibroids, even relatively small ones, to be advised to have a hysterectomy, in order to avoid a more complicated procedure in the future.
What’s really important to know about this, is that studies have shown that there is little or no justification for a severe intervention such as a hysterectomy, when fibroids are present.
Why isn’t a hysterectomy a good idea?
I’ll explore this in more depth in a future blog.
But in a nutshell, cutting out the area that has gone out of balance, is not the solution.
Why?
Because our reproductive organs do more for us than simply facilitate reproduction.
They regulate our hormones; essentially helping us stay sane and keeping our whole body in balanced, working order.
And they help keep the internal structures in place.
If you take something out of the body, then just like taking the central supporting structures out of a tall building, you create massive instability, which can lead to prolapse of various other necessary organs in the body.
On top of this, it messes with our libido, usually causing a testosterone deficiency, which can dampen our sexual response.
And given that the cervix and uterus play a role in your orgasmic response, you can lose that depth of sensation.
While in a small number of cases hysterectomy is necessary, in the majority of cases it is not, and I hear first hand from women all the time, of the struggles – both physical and emotional – they now have to deal with, as a result of having their most womanly parts taken from them.
For some women, having their intimate parts removed, can feel like rape; opening up a whole gamut of unhealed emotional wounds, and further deepening their feelings of being abused.
It’s so very important to understand that it’s not up to a doctor to decide what you should be doing with your uterus.
Your doctor’s job is to offer you options.
Then it’s up to you to decide whether those options resonate with your approach to life, and how you wish to care for your body, or whether you need to dig deeper and take responsibility for your own healing.
There are many treatment options and approaches available to help heal fibroids in a more gentle, natural way.
Modalities such as Yoga for the Vagina, Pelvic Steam Therapy, Mayan Abdominal Massage and Chi Nei Tsang (Chinese Abdominal Massage) and emotional clearing work like that which I teach in my One-on-One Intensive and Remarkable Relationships courses, are all super helpful.
Even if you do want feel safer taking a more Western Medicine approach to your healing, there are still many different options available, that do not require signing up for a hysterectomy.
It really is your job to ask your doctor about these.
Whatever you decide, know that the choice is YOURS.
It’s up to YOU to decide which healing path resonates with your personal wishes and beliefs.
How does the Yoga for the Vagina practice help is dissolving fibroids?
It works on two main levels.
Firstly, the postures used in Yoga for the Vagina help open the pelvic and hip area, so there is more circulation – more space – so there is more chi (energy) flowing through the area, which brings greater health and healing to the area.
Using the Jade Egg internally, helps work from the inside in increasing circulation, while also toning and awaking the area, so the whole pelvis moves into a more healthful state, providing an environment upon which the body can do what it does best; self-heal.
The Jade Egg is also able to reach the cervix, which is the base – or doorway – of the uterus.
So in that sense, you can get a direct, internal connection with the uterus.
In Yoga for the Vagina practices, we also work with massaging various areas of the vagina and pelvis, which breaks down scar tissue, increases circulation and brings more vibrancy and resilience to the area.
Secondly, because Yoga for the Vagina is a practice that connects you to your inner voice, so you can look within for answers, you’ll start to build a connection that will invite you into a new way of being and doing life, that supports you in creating a healthy mind-set, lifestyle and love for yourself, that directly facilitates inner healing.
For the truth is…
If the uterus is out of balance, a woman’s physical, emotional and spiritual life will also be out of balance.
You can read more and get your free Yoga for the Vagina Starter’s Sequence here.
How does Pelvic Steam Therapy work in melting away the fibroids?
Quite literally, the heat of the steam melts the fibroids over time, so they can break down and release with your period.
If you’re no longer having periods, this still works, with some women experiencing some discharge to allow out the dissolving fibroids.
In most cases this is not at all painful, although you will probably experience some gunky stuff coming out of your vagina.
Know that this is a good thing, as it means your uterus is cleansing itself, which is exactly what it’s designed to do.
With steaming, if the fibroids are inside the uterus, on the inner lining, they are quite easy to melt out as they’re more easily reachable, often breaking down within 3 months of regular steaming.
If the fibroids are embedded in the uterine lining, steaming still works, but may take a little longer to melt.
It’s when the fibroids are embedded on the outside of the uterus, that steaming takes longer to treat the area, possibly up to 12 months.
But that’s better than an invasive procedure, right?!
The way steam works, is by dissolving – or melting away – any phlegm and gunk that has become lodged or stuck inside the uterus.
So you’re quite literally cleansing the uterus, so that there’s no breeding grounds for fibroids.
Yes, the uterus is designed to self-cleanse through your period each month, however, due to lifestyle choices and stress, we can create imbalances in the body that impede this function.
I share more about how the uterus cleanses itself in this blog: What tampons are doing to your womb.
When you work with a qualified Pelvic Steam Therapist like myself, they will prescribe specific herbs to steam with, that will help balance your body so that the dampness – or excess phlegm – being produced – that made your uterus susceptible to fibroids in the first place – is no longer there.
In this way, you’re not only cleansing the uterus, but also helping return the maintain a healthy balance moving forward.
If you’d like to learn more about Pelvic Steam Therapy, simple go here.
How does emotional work and belief clearing work?
You’re able to identify and clear the exact thinking patterns, belief systems and resulting emotional patterns that have lodged themselves in your cells, and triggered off the formation of the physical environment that makes you prone to fibroids.
In this way, you’re going directly to the root cause of the fibroids, so you can essentially re-pattern the cells of the pelvis, so that the fibroids have nothing to ‘feed’ off, so to speak.
You’re unplugging the fibroid source!
This is why when I personally work with women with fibroids, we clear the emotional patterns and limiting beliefs, we do Yoga for the Vagina, we steam the pelvis, and we explore the woman’s creative yearnings.
When this holistic approach is taken, with a true commitment to healing, then it’s impossible for the fibroids to stay.
Fibroids, like any physical manifestation in the body, don’t just come out of nowhere and land on your uterus!
They come from a place of being unaligned with who you truely are.
They are a result of unresolved energetic and emotional patterns, that have manifested physically in the uterus.
Therefore, fibroids are healable.
You simply need to be willing to spend some time getting to know your pelvis.
Getting to know your self.
If you’re open to exploring your creative yearnings, if you’re willing to enter into communication with your body, if you’re willing to facilitate your own natural healing (through the kinds of practices I mention above), all the while being open to listening to what your body requires of you, then in all the cases I have personally seen, the fibroids dissolve naturally, with no need for external medical intervention.
When you’re willing and ready to enter into a relationship with your uterus, deep healing can unfold.
Simply engaging in the kinds of practices I’ve shared here, allow you a doorway into developing that necessary connection with your uterus.
Just as we contribute to the diseases and ailments in our body, so too can we contribute to the healing of them.
True healing requires a change in our consciousness.
I hope this blog has been helpful in offering you a deeper understanding of fibroids and the natural options available on your healing path.
If you have any questions, please just comment below.
Big love from my uterus to yours!