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Conversations with the Inspiring Beth Anne Fisher

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Beth Anne Fisher.

Beth Anne, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I have been a licensed physical therapist for 17 years. The first fifteen years or so I worked in hospital-based and critical care physical therapy, a little-known emerging specialty at the time I came out of school. I didn’t treat shoulders and knees like you might find in a typical clinic, but whole people in an extremely ill and deconditioned state. I supported patients who were in many ways ‘resurrecting from the edge of death.’ They were critically ill in hospital intensive care units, and I helped them to start moving again, even while they were still hooked up to extensive equipment. The research was showing in the course of my career that patients were more likely to improve their mobility and chances of getting out of the hospital if they started really early. This was a very intense career for me in many ways. Throughout this time, I also served as a clinical instructor for PT students, taught at the physical therapy program at University of Colorado, published a paper, and did some interesting work with hospitalized patients who had eating disorders, traumatic accidents, transplants, and several other fascinating critical care settings in Level 1 Trauma and university teaching environments. As I said though, very intense, and at the end of the day, I like to say that it all had an “expiration date.”

Around the 15-year mark, I could sense that it was time for a break, and I was fortunate enough to be able to stop working in a clinical setting to attend to emerging family needs, as well as to restore, reflect, and re-evaluate my personal and professional path. In the course of this time of reflection and renewal, I did some deep work with my body, tending to my own pelvic health issues related to painful periods, dyspareunia, and incontinence, much of it related to major childhood kidney surgery and the remaining scars. I worked with a physical therapist, various bodyworkers, a somatic experiencing practitioner/counselor, soul care mentors, and coaches of all kinds. I took to processing my work by writing poetry, meditation, journaling, spending time in nature, moving my body, and learning more about research-based pelvic health, energy medicine, ancient healing wisdom traditions, and movement practices.

About a year and a half into my “sabbatical,” I started sensing a “cosmic pull” towards women’s pelvic health after experiencing so much improvement in my own body and soul from working on various levels to heal. Initially, I resisted, as I did not want to return to the health care system as it presently exists and I was not sure that I wanted to continue being a physical therapist. As I started to attend more research-based and holistic pelvic health courses, and then talked to other practitioners, I started sensing the inner courage to create the women’s pelvic health practice of my dreams, outside of the health care system, in a sweet, professional yet inviting way, to provide my patients with the care they deserve to heal their own bodies. Womb Matters was born out of a love for using gentle touch manual therapies, movement medicine, and empowering coaching and education to help women heal and become more of their true selves. While the challenges are huge, this path has felt more and more certain to me with each step, creating an inviting space to help women learn about their bodies and deeper body wisdom.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I would say the road has had some bumps, but in other ways, has been smooth. Several years back, when I was less clear about my path, I had tried to start a small bodywork practice based on other streams of work. In retrospect, it was more of a reaction to my frustrations with the health care system, but I was not enough in a creation space to successfully sustain that practice. I was trying to create something new with ‘old tools.’ I had no idea what I was doing or who my ideal patients were, and was still trying to work in the hospital at the same time. I learned a ton of things in that prior business the hard way, so this time around, I already knew the ways in which I did and did not want to do certain things as I started my physical therapy practice.

I would actually say that the most challenging struggle for me this time around has been trust – in myself, in my skills, in the business-building process, and in the overall “Plan” with a capital “P.” Two key practices I really had to commit to were the following: walking through my life with ‘eyes wide open’ to see opportunities in unexpected places; and allowing events to ‘unfold’ more than pushing them ahead. In my prior business venture, I did not have the patience to allow an unfolding process of events, meetings, collaborations – all the things required to create a solid business from the heart. I kept pushing and pushing to get things done and ended up in a place of burnout, closing the business only a couple of years after I started. I had to learn how to find and get into a flow.

The biggest hurdle for me this time around was clearing my memory of the prior experience to trust that I could do it again, do it better, and do it successfully, with my definition of success being this: choosing to get up every day and show up for Life – show up, be present, and be ready with a sense of anticipation.

This time around, I chose to keep my business practices much more simple, streamlined, and I chose low overhead options to get started on the path. And, while I am still working to narrow my niche down, I have immensely more clarity on who the patients are that I wish to serve.

Advice? Start simple and consider options for locations, collaborators, coaches, and processes that may not be readily apparent. Get to know yourself well enough to trust your process and trust the process happening around you. Things will come together exactly as they need to. Everything that happens matters and is there to teach you – sometimes this is a hard truth, but it is good. And, when you don’t know what to do next or it looks too overwhelming, DO SOMETHING. Paralysis is probably one of the greatest slugs to the creative process, and to the flow of accomplishing necessary steps. Finally, don’t do it alone. Sometimes you need a coach, but more often you simply need others listening, providing encouragement and support as you give the same to them.

For instance, currently, I am a part of a women’s business mastermind group with two other female entrepreneurs who are challenging current paradigms in fitness and health. We meet regularly and have created our own structure of support to help one another with current business issues, how those issues may intersect with our personal lives, and provide ‘soft’ accountability to help one another keep stepping forward in our businesses. A completely organic process and it’s working beautifully to help each of us to feel supported and heard in our struggles and our triumphs.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into Womb Matters Physical Therapy story. Tell us more about it.
I serve as a bridge between research-based women’s pelvic health physical therapy and holistic gentle manual therapies, largely the use of the Arvigo Techniques of Maya Abdominal Therapies and massage. I see the bridge as necessary because we have ‘evidence’ from studies in western medicine, but it’s not the whole story. It is also important to consider the ‘evidence before the evidence’ that may be offered from the healing wisdom practices of ancient cultures, to see what might be helpful for us in our context today.

I offer women physical therapy with ‘soul’. I help women to address conditions in their bodies including scar tissue challenges (like c-sections or other abdominal surgeries), incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, painful sex, issues related to pelvic congestion, painful periods, and optimizing fertility through addressing organ and pelvic alignment. While pelvic health physical therapy is not exclusively about the health of the pelvic floor, it does not often include the optimal alignment and positioning of the uterus and other organs in the pelvic bowl, which is where I felt called to train in maya abdominal massage. The healers and midwives among the Mayan people of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico and Belize have believed for centuries that the position of the uterus, in particular, contributes very significantly to the health or lack of health that a woman experiences in her body. They have provided a uterine massage to women in the community as a part of their healing practices for so many ailments.

Uterine massage plus pelvic floor physical therapy was and continues to be, key in my own healing process. I have found both of these therapies separately, and even more powerfully so in combination, to be incredibly supportive for women who are interested in optimizing their fertility, managing pain and scar tissue associated with endometriosis, all kinds of issues surrounding painful periods, post-partum pelvic healing, PCOS, and the peri-menopausal transition. Optimizing the strength, coordination, and ability to relax the pelvic floor, in addition to enhancing organ alignment, pelvic circulation including blood, lymph, nerve communication, and energy, creates an incredible opportunity to help women’s bodies experience healing in ways that they may not have prior. I also incorporate what research is profoundly telling us about our nervous systems – helping women to address the ‘body environment’ in which all of these other things occur. The body cannot heal in a ‘fight or flight’ state if it does not feel safe to relax, so we work a fair amount to incorporate what I call ‘peaceful nervous system strategies’ into our work together.

I love the name of my business, Womb Matters, for this reason. The womb space, or uterus, matters in every season of life. This has been lost on the current health care system, which provides the bulk of support to a woman only when she carries a baby within. While pregnancy is an amazing and courageous path, it is not the only path or phase in a woman’s life in which the womb has significance and contribution to her life. The womb always matters, and that is the message I am trying to get across. Even when the uterus is gone, in the case of a hysterectomy, it still matters, as a woman’s body retains an energetic imprint of the uterus’ contribution, and the shifting in connective tissues that results from a hysterectomy can cause issues for a woman, such as prolapse or low back pain, that were not always connected to this procedure in the past.

This unique skill set and awareness that tends to the pelvic floor and the uterine space with a blend of research and healing wisdom practice is what sets me apart. I have had more than one patient who came to me, looking for an abdominal massage practitioner and a pelvic health physical therapist separately, only to find that I can address both of these things. In addition, I function as a cash-based physical therapy practice. This means that my patients pay for the services out-of-pocket. This is an increasingly common model in Denver and for good reason. I have the time to spend the entire session, usually, 90 minutes or so each time, to really hear a woman’s story, provide really quality coaching and education, and take time with the gentle therapies that I provide. I do not believe that we need to cause more pain to get out of pain if that is a part of the issue. The body invites the practitioner in with ease, or it does not, and that is what many of my trainings continue to teach me. We work collaboratively with the patient’s body to support their healing, which comes from them, not me. I am there to facilitate removing barriers, but the healing path is their own.

Honestly, on a deeper level, my work exists to support women in making peace with their bodies, and discovering peace within their bodies, not outside themselves; like coming home to their bodies. It is difficult to heal something for which we lack awareness, like our pelvic bowl, and we cannot heal something we feel at odds with. My work is a bridge of peace on that healing path.

For good reason, society often focuses more on the problems rather than the opportunities that exist, because the problems need to be solved. However, we’d probably also benefit from looking for and recognizing the opportunities that women are better positioned to capitalize on. Have you discovered such opportunities?
So many opportunities for women exist! The feminine flow of intuition, creativity, and intelligence gives them a unique opportunity to lead businesses, organizations, and even entire professional fields, into new directions and expressions. This goes for the one-woman solo practice like mine or the CEO of a huge corporation. Women have been taught that in order to shine we have to lead like men – no offense to the men – but our current culture needs women to ‘lead like women.’ The opportunity is to discover exactly what that looks like and to uphold these expressions as valid and credible in the face of a culture that has often up until now relied on masculine leadership and entrepreneurial styles to get ahead.

Women are well-suited to bring true life-work balance to work culture, to create and set boundaries on what is OK and what is not OK (thank you, Brene Brown) within the workplace as far as realistic pacing of projects and timelines, and to uphold the validity of intuition as a credible part of the decision-making process.

Also, women are inherently collaborative! This is a huge game-changer for our current economic and business ethical culture. In my business, I do not believe that I compete with anyone. I collaborate, creating a win-win situation. The masculine way of competition being as cut-throat as it is-is spinning out of control and the mighty dollar is upheld as the ‘new ethic’ in and of itself over people. We were created as people to ‘use things’ to make life better, but looking around it seems that ‘things,’ in the form of corporate entities, are ‘using people’ instead. Women are wired for collaboration and I believe this is an essential ingredient to turning that ship around.

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Image Credit:
Amanda Hoffman, Grover Koehler

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