Last week was the week of the Anus in the body of work I’m currently involved in as peer Support/ Coach- Sexological Bodywork. In all the embodiment trainings I’ve done and in the spaces I hold, I notice that the two places that often hold the most shame, fear and reservation is the place of the throat and making sound and the place of the anus where we let go of all our shit.
Funnily enough these are the two places I’m most fascinated by in the body and pretty comfortable with in myself.
For a Variety of reasons of reasons though and through conditioned learning it often doesn’t feel comfortable to play and explore in both these areas … well we did when we were children but then they became taboo. Be quiet, don’t speak up, you’ll get smacked quite literally on the bum if you make too much noise and say things you shouldn’t. In fact, it’s still illegal in some countries to have Anal sex. They’re also the places where a lot of abuse happens. So both get hidden away and neither you can see easily. They don’t get the sunlight unless you open your mouth wide or spread your cheeks.
In my learning in this work watching the amazing Ellen Heed Videos I discovered that the internal sphincter of the anus (there are two) is made of smooth muscle the same as the throat and the cervix as well as connected by different nerves like the hypoglossal and vagus nerve. That’s why women are encouraged to make sound during childbirth as it opens the cervix. And if you have a croaky voice, it can be linked to having a tight Anus - yep true ….
It seems women are only starting to find their Voice again as we’re all seeing showing up in the collective. I remember one of my beautiful teachers sharing when she birthed her 3 children, she was praised for staying quiet and making no sound. But what happens to that sound. It stays held in the body, in the cells until years later a space was held for her to release all the sounds she was never able to make. Our bodies are so full of wisdom, but we have to hold presence and allowing for this to show up.
So the anus. Anyone who’s had slow deeply present penetration (whether that be with a finger or with a penis) knows the pleasure that can be had. How deeply down-regulating it is, dropping into deep shamanic spaces, the void, new gateways. But many of us have memories of pain and contraction because we’ve overridden the pain and pushed through. And so we’ve given it names like arsehole and tight arse.
It holds thousands of nerve endings. Those nerve endings are there for a reason. The choice is ours but until we let go of the shame in giving her a voice maybe she’ll continue to be painful. When we misuse our voice, we grow nodules. When we misuse or disconnect from our anus, we get hemorrhoids (and yes I know this can be linked to the gut but the point is, it’s all linked). The anus also connects us deeper to the earth. We sit on our tailbone, our sitz bones, our Pelvic bowl. In fact if you look at the bony structure of the pelvis it’s very similar to the bony structure of the jaw down into the throat.
Curious to bring a voice to your anus? There’s a whole other world down there if you allow it. Hey and maybe if we all start to bring a voice to our anus and allow the pleasure in in a gentle slow surrendered way, allow ourselves to let go our shit, allow ourselves a deeper connection with our dragons tail (tailbone) there might, just maybe, start to be less arseholes in the world 😊