God help me

I’ve committed to posting once a month in 2021. Twelve months is as big a commitment as I can make right now, and “big a commitment” is not of grammar, I think? Not sure. Language! Am rusty.

I am hoping that what I was missing in my life last year (besides the ability to leave my apartment) was a place where I could both try to share interesting things and also write nonsense online for the sheer joy of it. Life feels slightly less futile when I can imagine someone (you) reading it. That you, my theoretical reader, might see yourself in this nonsense mirror! Not complete sentence. Am trying.

Every day is new year’s day, if you want it to be.

I feel like the whole “new year, new you” thing comes at a bad time for me and many of us who live in the northern hemisphere. New Me needs to cool it, as Now Me is still in a cozy mid-winter blanket fort and intends to stay there for some time. I will not start a new eating regimen, nor leap about in a chill dusk to boost my wellness. My wellness is centered on warm food and slippers right now, I willst return to activitye at the Springge Equinox and not an minute before.

Here is my secret for not peeing when you laugh too hard: ladies and gentlemen, get ready to BE AMAZED.

I am going to be 57 this month. I know for some who don’t know me in person that might sound . . . inaccurate. I, too, picture myself still being somewhere around 38? 43?? Mentally, I still haven’t matured past 30 (a fun but unpredictable age). But I will tell you honestly that I relish being the age wherein my uterus has gone down for the long nap. However, to reach that delicious milestone the gods forced me to sacrifice a few things, like the integrity of my face, neck, breasts, and thong.

I will now explain the continence technology I have discovered, and I hope that by reading this you’ll be able to make it your own.

HERE WE GO

If you can* stand up, stand up and clench your toes against the ground, the floor, your shoes, whatever. Socks. It doesn’t matter.

Now, lean forward a bit so that you’re putting more of your weight on the balls of your feet just behind your big toe (if you have** one).

Practice doing that, and while you are practicing I’ll explain how this seems to magically energize the pelvic floor and keep you from peeing your pants. If you don’t care how or why I think this works, you’re done reading! Have a wonderful month and I hope I see you in February.

*I think with practice you can do this sitting, too, but I’ve only got the standing part worked out.

**I think you could do this without toes altogether, if you’re able to just push your weight into the ball of every foot you’ve got.

Esoterica Ahoy

There’s a thing in yoga called the mula bandha, which is an energetic center basically equivalent to the pelvic floor. (Fun fact: the lowest chakra is called the muladhara chakra. Mula means “root” in Sanskrit and chakra means “wheel.” Bandha means “binding.” Let’s stop there.)

Some types of yoga will teach you how to perform an “energy lock” with your mula bandha that is similar to the Kegel. A properly achieved mula bandha will go beyond a Kegel squeeze, though, and will naturally engage the energy lock in your abdomen called the uddiyana bandha. (Uddiyana means “upward.”)

These two energy locks bracket the bladder, one above and one below.

Here’s the interesting thing

Mula bandha starts in the feet. (If mula means root, I think it follows that a root would go all the way down to/into the ground.) Strong, activated feet connected to the ground seem to encourage a kind of strength to travel up through your inner legs and directly into your pelvic floor.

Note: I am not a yoga expert. I have practiced yoga for 20 years but I’m not that smart so this is just me figuring some stuff out a couple of weeks ago.

The result of all this abdominal tomfoolery

is that now whenever my bladder suddenly whispers to my brain “YOU’RE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT” and I’m miles from the nearest convenience (some ladies my age might be familiar), I will remember to activate my feet in the manner described above and the pee urgency is suddenly under my complete control again. This allows me to slow my mad dash and avoid trying to tear my jeans off as I run, tripping over my own feet, cracking my skull on the tile, and dying.

That’s all I care about: dying with dignity, and not in a pool of blood and pee.

My hope is that if readers with female anatomy get this nailed now, we won’t have to spend our golden years soaking our recliners. I’ve seen it and it bums me out. So much so that I’m turning 57 and this is a new life goal: to be the dryest old lady in assisted living. (Honestly, it doesn’t feel that far away.)

But who knows, it may be unavoidable, and maybe when I get that old I won’t care anyway. The freedom to whiz in your pants might be the real gift of old age. Who am I to say?