Your Body Has Always Known: A Conversation with Integrated Pelvic Floor Expert Renske Kuipers
- Joanne Smolders
- Jun 9
- 5 min read
What happens when we stop treating the pelvic floor as a mechanical problem and start listening to it as a source of wisdom?
Most of us were never taught that our pelvic area is a home. We were taught it's a container for babies, for periods, for problems. Nobody told us it holds our creativity, our sexuality, our emotional memory, or the deep feminine knowing that lives at the very center of who we are. In this Umaversity Podcast conversation, Jo Sarah, Umaversity founder, sits down with Renske Kuipers, integrated pelvic floor therapist, breathwork coach, and midwife with over 12 years of experience, to explore what it really means to come home to your own body.
"It's so much fun and brings so much joy to actually really live in your own body and feel free with your own sexuality. All these things come from bringing balance in your pelvic area and feeling vital." — Renske Kuipers
How did you come to do this work?
She started studying to become a midwife at 27, drawn by what she describes as "a deeper knowing," a longing to understand her own body from the inside out. That same longing became the thread she now follows with every woman+ she works with.
"It all started with myself," she says. "This wanting to feel home in my own body."
After more than a decade working with pregnant women+ as a midwife, Renske saw something consistent: it often wasn't the intervention itself that caused distress, but how it was done, when it was done, and whether the woman+ was truly ready. That insight led her to train as an integrated pelvic floor therapist, working on the physical, emotional, and energetic layers of pelvic health.
Why is the pelvic area so important beyond the physical?
In Western medicine, the pelvic floor gets reduced to muscles, tight or loose, functional or not. Renske holds a much wider lens.
"Your pelvic area is your foundation," she says. "It's the place where you come home to yourself. It's where your safety lives, your s*xuality, your creativity."
The body doesn't separate emotional experience from physical sensation. Stress, trauma, and unfelt emotions all find somewhere to live and for many women+, that somewhere is the pelvis. There's even a major muscle running from the spine through the pelvic floor to the legs, the psoas, that activates in fight-or-flight and holds tension long after the threat has passed.
"Your body remembers what your mind has moved on from."- Renske Kuiper
If you've ever felt stuck, creatively blocked, disconnected from your pleasure, or somehow not fully present in your own life. Renske says: “start here”
What is the heart-womb connection, and why does it matter?
This was one of the most beautiful moments in the conversation. Renske describes a concept from Eastern medicine called the Bao Mai, a vessel connecting the heart and the womb and why keeping that channel alive changes everything.
"Your heart is your source of fuel, your inner sun," she explains. "Your womb is the place where you receive. But if it's not fueled by the love of your heart, it's much more difficult to be open to receive."
The practice she offers is simple and profound: place one hand on your heart, one on your lower belly. Breathe toward your heart first. Picture a golden thread of light traveling down to your womb. Let it glow there. Then bring it back up.
What does a strong heart-womb connection actually give you?
More creativity. A stronger relationship with your desires. The ability to move from longing to creation from the dream in your heart to the thing you build with your life.
"You plant your seeds into the womb," Renske says, "and there they will come to life."
The energies of the female+ anatomy, a map
Renske walks through the distinct energies carried by each part of the female+ anatomy, drawing on Taoist philosophy:
Left ovary — yin energy. Receptive, nurturing, playful. The energy of inner creation and beauty.
Right ovary — yang energy. Expressive, grounded, outward-facing. The energy of standing your ground and showing your creativity to the world.
The womb — transformative wisdom. It holds, it alchemizes, it releases. This is the seat of deep intuition, of knowing before knowing..
The cervix — the inner gatekeeper. Deep inside the body, she knows what to let in and what to hold back. Renske describes a line of energy between the cervix and the heart that, when touched or invited, brings women+ into profound contact with their own feeling center.
The vagina and vulva — the outer gatekeepers. The birth channel. A self-cleaning, self-regulating environment and the threshold between the inner world and the outer one.
The cl!tor!s — the golden arch. The entrance to the temple. Renske describes it as wise and powerful, a guardian of embodied yes.
What does it mean to really listen to your body?
Modern life teaches women+ to push through, hold in, and get on with it. Renske offers the opposite: slow down, turn toward, and listen.
She calls this the felt sense.. It speaks in tingling, density, bubbly aliveness, or a quiet stillness that's impossible to explain. It also speaks through images, movements, spontaneous emotion, and the urge to sound or shake.
"Every time you stop a movement or emotion that wants to come through," she says, "it gets stored in your body somewhere."
The antidote isn't dramatic. It's going outside. Moving in nature. Dancing in your living room , especially, as Jo Sarah noted with laughter, twerking. Shaking. Breathing. Being in your body without agenda.
For deeper support, Renske works with embodied consent, a practice where every step of a session is preceded by a full-body yes, not just a mental agreement. It's a radical retraining in what it feels like to truly choose, and to receive something that's entirely for you.
“When you know what a real yes feels like in your body, everything changes.”
A note for women+ who've never thought about this before
If none of this was part of your education, you're not behind. Most of us were never given this map.
Start where Renske started: with curiosity. A childlike willingness to ask, what is there for me today to explore? You don't have to feel everything at once. You don't have to be fixed or healed or awakened by Tuesday. Renske says it plainly: "It's an ongoing process for me too."
Build your village. Find the women+ and practitioners who can hold space while you do the feeling. You were never meant to do this alone.
Your body has always known the way. You're just learning to trust it again.
About Renske Kuipers
Renske Kuipers is an integrated pelvic floor therapist, breathwork coach, and midwife with over 12 years of experience. She works with women+ of all ages, bridging Eastern philosophy, somatic practice, and embodied consent to help them restore balance, vitality, and deep connection to their pelvic area and feminine wisdom. Her approach is holistic, body-led, and rooted in the belief that every woman+ deserves to feel free, in her body, her creativity, and her s*xuality.
Want to go deeper? Watch or Listen to the full podcast episode and join our Umaversity community, where women+ gather to learn, share, and grow together.
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