Recently we sat down with Molly of Swan in the Lotus Yoga and Wellness, LLC to learn more about Bhakti yoga and her passion of supporting women who are seeking a holistic approach to healthcare. Molly has been practicing yoga for over 20 years and teaching for 16. Her regular practice helped manage her chronic anxiety and depression and along this journey she found the strength and resources to move through a life-long pelvic floor condition. Because of this condition, she experienced chronic low back and pelvic pain along with IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). As she moved through Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy, she learned that she wasn’t alone and many other women had issues with their pelvic floor. It led her to pursue a Wellness Coaching Certification and continue her education with a holistic approach to wellness.
How would you describe Bhakti yoga to someone who is unfamiliar with it and what can they expect from a class?
Bhakti Yoga is the devotional practice of yoga. It is the path that leads us back to love and the disciplines meant to bring one to a state of pure love, of God. It’s the unfolding to bring us back to the natural condition of the soul, an eternal, enlightened bliss. Practices of Bhakti Yoga include meditation, singing, dancing, poetry, art, mantra, chanting, kirtan, self-inquiry, and more. Students can expect classes to include meditations, mantras, internal sound vibration, poetry, and themes that move our asana-based practice to self-inquiry to connect deeper within.
Explain more about pelvic floor conditions, ways to support, and how it affects women's health and well-being.
Approximately 10% of women ages 20 to 39, 27% of women ages 40 to 59, 37% of women ages 60 to 79, and nearly half of women ages 80 or older will experience a pelvic floor condition in their lifetime.
These are most common pelvic floor conditions:
These conditions can disrupt day-to-day functions in women's lives including causing more stress to find a bathroom, physical discomfort, pain, anxiety, depression, hormonal imbalance, digestive issues, and the list goes on!
Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy (PFPT) helps as you work with a therapist to diagnose your condition, find out the cause, and help the muscles come back to balance so you have proper function. As a wellness coach, I help women pre, during, and post therapy to move through road blocks that might come up, develop a mindset to keep motivated, and other holistic practices that they incorporate along with working with a PFPT.
For women with busy schedules, what is that one thing they should incorporate into their routine that would help balance, center, and reduce stress in their lives?
The most powerful practice that women can incorporate into their routine is Diaphragmatic Breath! It helps strengthen and release the pelvic floor, relieve stress, and fills the body with fresh air to feel more nourished.
Diaphragmatic breathing expands and opens all the breathing support muscles
and organs that you need to breathe on a daily bases.
What is your favorite yoga pose, mantra, or mudra, and why?
My favorite mantra is Uma Parvati Ananda Ma. It reminds me to connect to the Goddess of Love and Devotion and find the bliss within even when the path feels hard. This mantra helped me through my pelvic floor healing and reminded me to love myself during the process. It also reminds me to remember love and turn to the voice of love within us all.
Thank you, Molly, for sharing and inspiring women to feel empowered about their heath and physical body. Check out Molly's upcoming classes here at Angelic Roots.
