Ep. 77: How to reconnect to your body and heal pelvic pain through somatic movement - with Samara Concepción
Welcome to the fourth conversation of The Healthy Vagina Project - through the lens of Somatic Movement and Birth Work!
This conversation follows a golden thread woven through the landscapes of this project: the cyclical nature of the pelvis, sensation, movement, and life itself. The pelvis as a place of deep sensory intelligence. A place that holds grief and pleasure, descent and rising, birth and death. A place that remembers.
Together we explore what becomes possible when we trust the body’s timing, allow sensation to guide us, and meet pain not as something to fix, but as something alive, relational, and meaningful.
Samara Concepción is a holistic birth doula, a women’s health practitioner, and a social artist, based in London. She is devoted to elevating women’s experiences of womanhood, pregnancy, birth and motherhood through reacquainting them with their deepest source of truth and power, which is their innate body wisdom. Samara is the host of the Birth: A New Story podcast, which is a gathering place for visionary voices to explore what it means to be human and welcome new life into the world with reverence, and is the director of the emerging documentary film by the same name.
In this conversation we explored:
Descent and rising: In moments of pain and grief, descent is natural and doesn’t need to be fixed. It’s a rich, layered experience that fosters connection. Samara shares how she navigated these moments, especially when the descent feels endless, and highlights the importance of not descending in isolation — we need the presence of others.
The pelvic bowl brings us into deep relationship with the earth, natural law, and creative cycles. The pelvis has the capacity to feel the deepest rivers of grief and pleasure, birth and death, and connects us to something eternal and intangible, if we dare to listen.
Why it’s essential to begin listening and nurturing a relationship with our bodies if we are on a journey to heal pain and physical challenges.
Samara shares how her dance training led her to somatic movement, feeling like a return to the initial desire to move for pure pleasure and joy, and how she learned to let her body lead again.
What inspired Samara to become a guide and teacher in birth work and women’s health was her exploration of the question: “How would birth unfold if women were invited to meet their bodies’ innate wisdom through somatic movement?”
We can all begin to inhabit our pelvic bowl physically by attuning to sensation and discovering resources of aliveness and pleasure — it’s a subtle and profound process.
I hope you enjoy this conversation!