12/10/2025
Endometriosis Part Two - Bodywork
When we begin to understand what endometriosis does inside the body, we begin to understand why the body stiffens and protects itself the way it does. Endo does not simply sprinkle pain throughout the pelvis; it alters the architecture of the entire region. Adhesions form the way ivy climbs a wall, slowly weaving itself into places it doesn’t belong. Fascia, irritated by months and years of inflammation, thickens and loses its suppleness until it behaves less like a silk ribbon and more like a dense felt mat. The organs, which were meant to slip and glide past one another like dancers crossing a stage, begin to cling to one another instead. This loss of glide is not a poetic exaggeration. Researchers like Stecco and Nezhat describe it precisely this way. The reproductive organs lose their choreography. They tug. They resist. They hold tension the way a frightened body holds its breath.
This is where bodywork becomes meaningful, because our work is not to force movement but to remind the body that movement is still possible. When we place our hands on the abdomen, we are meeting a landscape shaped by years of micro-bracing and survival strategies. Visceral work encourages the organs to rediscover their natural pathways. A gentle lift of the uterus creates just enough space for blood flow to return. A soft rocking of the sigmoid colon loosens the adhesions that have tangled themselves into the digestive rhythm. The broad ligament, when coaxed with patience, begins to soften. These changes are small, but small is powerful in a body clenched in self-protection.
The psoas also carries its own story here. It is a deep, loyal muscle that responds to pain the way a mother pulls a child close in danger. It curls inward. It tightens around the pelvis. It creates a physical shield around the organs. But in doing so, it becomes part of the problem. A shortened psoas presses the uterus forward, compresses the ovaries, and arches the lumbar spine, increasing pelvic pressure. When we soften the psoas, it is like opening a window in a room that has been closed for years. The pelvis inhales. The abdomen expands. Nerve pathways quiet. Space returns in places the client did not even realize had felt crowded.
The surrounding muscles join this story. The iliacus grips along the inside of the hip like a clenched fist. The obliques tighten over the abdomen like armor. The quadratus lumborum holds tension that radiates downward into the pelvis, adding to the ache that endometriosis already creates. Even the diaphragm, which sits like a protective dome over the abdominal cavity, begins to freeze. Breath stays shallow, and the lymph stagnates. The natural massage of breathing never quite reaches the inflamed tissues below. When we release the diaphragm, it is as if the entire pelvic bowl exhales. Research has shown that this simple shift can reduce inflammatory signaling and improve organ motility, enabling clients to experience their first full breath in years.
We need to understand that all of this tightening happens for a reason. The body is not malfunctioning; it is protecting. Inflammation sends chemical messages that something is wrong, so fascia contracts to stabilize the area. Pain fires through the nerves, so the muscles brace to hold the region still. Scar tissue forms to patch irritated surfaces, but these patches limit movement and create new discomfort. Breathing narrows because the body believes stillness is safer. This is not a body betraying itself. This is a body doing everything it can to survive what hurts.
This is why our work matters. When we restore even a little movement to the organs, the body interprets it as a sign of safety. When we free the diaphragm, the nervous system loosens its grip. When we melt fascial densification, circulation improves, and pain softens. When we balance the sacrum beneath our hands, the entire pelvis reorganizes around this new sense of ease. And when we support lymphatic flow, swelling lessens, and pressure dissolves.
For clients at home, even something as simple as a warm compress over the lower abdomen can help the tissues soften between sessions. Warmth soothes inflamed fascia, invites the psoas to release its hold, and helps the organs settle. A warm castor oil pack with ginger and clary sage, a heated rice bag, or even a gentle hot shower becomes a way of telling the body it doesn’t have to brace all the time. Heat becomes a quiet form of self-compassion.
Bodywork cannot remove endometriosis, but it can change the way it is lived. It can return a sense of mobility to a pelvis that felt locked in place. It can create warmth where the tissues have gone cold. It can give a client a moment of quiet in a body that has been noisy for years, and it can help someone feel at home inside themselves again, even if the condition remains.
Just as the first part of this story honored the weight of this condition, this second part honors the possibility within it. The body is not broken; it is asking for room to breathe. And when we meet it with understanding, with skilled hands, with warmth, with presence, we give it the chance to remember its own resilience. We allow it to hope again.
