Plato reportedly said, “Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle.” What he meant is that for many people, underneath the surface is a struggle that isn’t visible. Inside each of us is a daily fight to deal with survival and the many obstacles in life, and the unseen interior efforts to overcome them.

My experience with pelvic pain – both professionally and personally – has made clear to me that the battle Plato refers to is more than just psychological, but also physical. It is intuitively obvious that stress can kill you or make you sick. We’re not surprised when an especially stressful event occurs and someone gets sick or even dies from it. There is an indisputable physiological component to stress: major blood vessels constrict, blood pressure elevates, the immune response is weakened or postponed, and adrenaline pumps into the bloodstream. This inward “fight, flight, or freeze” response to stress can take a huge toll on our health.

In my view, pelvic pain typically arises out of this inward battle. When a person is at peace and life is good, the muscles of the pelvic floor are relaxed and perform the functions of urination, defecation, and sexual response easily and comfortably. The pelvic floor feels good. However, when certain people deal with the challenges of life, and anxiety arises – which is just a fancy word for fear, and typically has little to do with actual survival – then the pelvic floor tightens.

Prolonged tightening in the pelvic floor leads to irritation of the pelvic tissue and then pain, setting the pelvic pain cycle in motion that makes pelvic pain chronic. One of the challenges for those suffering from pelvic pain is that there are no outward signs of this inner battle. Some physicians discount the pain that a patient describes because there are no outward symptoms that the physician can detect. The battle inside, however, is real.

So, the injunction to be kind to others because of the battles they deal with inside also speaks to the best treatment for pelvic pain. The Wise-Anderson Protocol is a method that operationalizes kindness to our own inner battle. Through careful instruction in pelvic floor and related physical therapy self-treatment, we teach our patients to gently physically loosen the painful inner and outer knots connected with pelvic floor pain. In order maintain this eased state long enough for the sore pelvic floor to have a chance to heal, we also teach our patients to quiet body and mind using Extended Paradoxical Relaxation.

Plato’s point is an excellent metaphor for thinking about how to heal pelvic floor pain. It’s important we recognize the inner battle fought by the pelvic pain patient, and apply a method to bring kindness and healing to it.