Womb Healing: Practices for Deep Feminine Restoration

Introduction

There's a place in your body that holds more than you might realise.

Your womb — whether you still have one physically or not — is more than a reproductive organ. It's an energetic centre. A seat of creativity, intuition, and feminine power. A place where life begins, yes, but also where emotions are stored, trauma can lodge, and deep healing can happen.

For many women, the womb has become a place of disconnection. We've been taught to ignore it except when it causes problems. We've numbed it with painkillers, dismissed its signals, or dissociated from it entirely after experiences of pain, loss, or violation.

But your womb is still there. Still holding. Still waiting.

Womb healing is the practice of returning to this sacred centre — not to fix it, but to listen to it. To release what's been stored there. To reclaim a part of yourself that may have gone quiet.

This isn't woo-woo. It's deeply somatic work, grounded in the understanding that our bodies hold our stories — and that some of the most powerful stories live in our most feminine spaces.¹

What Is Womb Healing?

Womb healing is a body-based approach to restoring connection, releasing trauma, and reclaiming vitality in the pelvic bowl and womb space.

It draws on ancient traditions — from Taoist practices to Mayan abdominal massage to indigenous womb wisdom — as well as modern somatic and trauma-informed approaches.²

At its core, womb healing recognises that:

The womb holds memory. Emotional experiences, particularly those related to sexuality, fertility, birth, loss, and violation, can become stored in the tissues and energy of the pelvic area.³
Disconnection is common. Many women have learned to dissociate from this area of the body as a protective response.
Reconnection is healing. Gently returning awareness, breath, and compassion to the womb space can facilitate profound release and restoration.

Womb healing isn't about having a physical uterus. Women who've had hysterectomies, who are post-menopausal, or who were born without a uterus can still do this work. The energetic womb — the sacral centre — remains.⁴

Why the Womb Holds So Much

Your womb area is located in the sacral chakra region — the energetic centre associated with emotions, creativity, sexuality, and pleasure.⁵ It's also home to a dense network of nerves, blood vessels, and connective tissue.

This area of the body is particularly vulnerable to holding:

Sexual Experiences

Positive and negative. Pleasure and violation. Consensual and non-consensual. The womb remembers what the mind may have tried to forget.

Reproductive Experiences

Pregnancy, birth, miscarriage, abortion, infertility — each of these leaves an imprint. Grief, joy, trauma, and love can all become stored in the tissues.

Menstrual Pain and Shame

Years of painful periods, dismissal of symptoms, or cultural shame around menstruation can create tension and armouring in the pelvic area.

Ancestral and Inherited Patterns

Some somatic practitioners believe that the womb can carry intergenerational imprints — patterns of trauma, grief, or restriction passed down through the maternal line.⁶

General Stress and Emotion

The pelvis is a "basement" where emotions often sink and settle. Unexpressed feelings, chronic stress, and nervous system dysregulation can all manifest as tension, pain, or numbness in this area.

Signs Your Womb Might Need Healing

How do you know if womb healing is relevant for you? Here are some signs:

Chronic pelvic pain with no clear medical explanation
Menstrual issues — severe cramps, heavy bleeding, irregular cycles, PMS
Feeling disconnected from your sexuality or sensuality
Numbness in the pelvic area — emotional or physical
Difficulty with intimacy — physical or emotional
Unprocessed reproductive experiences — birth trauma, miscarriage, abortion, infertility
History of sexual trauma — even if you've "dealt with it" mentally
Feeling cut off from creativity, intuition, or your "gut feelings"
A sense that something is "stuck" in your lower body

If any of these resonate, your womb may be asking for attention.

Practices for Womb Healing

Womb healing isn't one thing — it's a range of practices that invite you back into relationship with this part of your body. Here are some to explore:

1. Womb Breathing

This is the foundation. Simply bringing conscious breath into the womb space.

Lie down comfortably. Place your hands on your lower belly, below your navel. Breathe slowly and deeply, imagining the breath travelling all the way down into your pelvic bowl. With each exhale, imagine softening, releasing, letting go.

This practice rebuilds interoceptive connection and signals safety to the nervous system.⁷

2. Womb Massage (Abdominal-Sacral Massage)

Gentle self-massage of the lower abdomen and sacrum can release physical tension and increase blood flow to the area.

Using warm oil, make slow, clockwise circles on your lower belly. Work gently — this area can hold a lot, and tenderness may arise. You can also place a warm hand on your sacrum (lower back) for grounding.

Professional womb massage (like Arvigo® or Mizan therapy) goes deeper and is worth exploring with a trained practitioner.

3. Hip and Pelvic Release

The hips and pelvis often hold tension that restricts the womb space. Somatic movements that open and release this area can be profoundly healing:

Slow hip circles (standing or on hands and knees)
Figure-eight movements with the pelvis
Deep supported squats
Reclined butterfly pose (supta baddha konasana)
Gentle shaking focused on the pelvis

Let the movement be intuitive. Your body knows what it needs.

4. Yoni Steaming

An ancient practice found in many cultures, yoni steaming (also called vaginal steaming) involves sitting over a pot of warm herbal steam.

Proponents say it supports circulation, releases tension, and connects you to your womb in a nurturing way.⁸ While scientific research is limited, many women find it deeply relaxing and ritualistic.

If you try it, use gentle herbs (like rose, lavender, calendula) and ensure the steam isn't too hot.

5. Womb Visualisation and Meditation

Visualisation can be surprisingly powerful for womb healing.

In meditation, imagine breathing golden or rose-coloured light into your womb. Visualise any darkness, pain, or stuck energy being gently released with each exhale. You might imagine your womb as a garden being tended, or as a bowl being emptied and cleansed.

Some women find it helpful to "speak" to their womb — asking what it needs, what it's holding, what it wants to release.

6. Sound and Vibration

The womb responds to sound. Humming, toning, or singing — especially low, resonant sounds — can create vibration that releases tension in the pelvic area.

Try sitting comfortably and making a low "voo" or "hum" sound, feeling the vibration travel down into your belly and pelvis. This also activates the vagus nerve, supporting nervous system regulation.⁹

7. Emotional Release Work

Sometimes womb healing brings up big emotions — grief, rage, fear, sadness. This is part of the process.

Creating space for emotional release is essential. This might mean crying, shaking, moving, making sound, or simply being witnessed by a trusted practitioner or friend.

Suppressing what arises will just push it back down. Let it move.

Womb Healing After Trauma

If you have a history of sexual trauma, birth trauma, or other experiences that make your womb a sensitive area, please approach this work gently.

Womb healing can be incredibly powerful for trauma recovery — but it needs to happen at the right pace, with adequate support. Pushing too fast can be retraumatising.

Some guidelines:

Go slowly. You don't need to feel everything at once.
Titrate. Touch into the sensations briefly, then return to safety. Pendulate between activation and calm.¹⁰
Work with a professional. Trauma-informed somatic therapists, pelvic floor physiotherapists, and trained womb healers can provide the safety and guidance needed.
You're in control. You can stop at any time. Nothing should be forced.

Your womb will reveal what it's holding when you're ready — and not before.

The Womb-Heart Connection

In many traditions, the womb and heart are seen as intimately connected — two poles of feminine energy that need to be in relationship.¹¹

When the womb is shut down, the heart often compensates — overgiving, overloving, overextending. When the womb is reclaimed, the heart can come back into balance.

Womb healing isn't just about the pelvis. It's about restoring the full circuit of feminine energy — from root to heart to throat. Letting life force flow through all of you.

Why This Matters

Your womb is not just a reproductive organ. It's a centre of power, creativity, and wisdom that has been systematically ignored, shamed, and disconnected in our culture.

Reclaiming your womb is reclaiming a part of yourself. It's saying: This part of me matters. This part of me gets to heal. This part of me is sacred.

Whether you're healing from trauma, reconnecting after years of dissociation, or simply curious about deepening your relationship with your body — womb healing offers a path home.

What You Can Do Next

Ready to begin? Start here:

Place your hands on your womb. Right now. Just notice what's there. Breathe.
Practice womb breathing daily. Even five minutes can rebuild connection.
Explore gentle hip opening. Notice what emotions arise when you move this area.
Journal. Ask your womb: What do you need? What are you holding? What wants to be released?
Seek support. If trauma is part of your story, find a practitioner who specialises in this work.

Ready to Reconnect With Your Womb?

At Somatic Body, I guide women through deep feminine healing — including womb restoration work as part of my SomaCycle™️ Method and 4-Body Healing System.

Together, we create a safe container for you to explore what's been stored, release what's ready to go, and reclaim the vitality and wisdom that lives in your feminine centre.

Your womb has been waiting. She's ready when you are.

Learn more about working with me → Book An Embodiment Session

Written by Shannon Harrison — Somatic & Energetic Integration Specialist, foundress of Somatic Body™️

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