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Episode 2

Why Sex Hurts & Periods Are Painful | Pelvic Floor Dysfunction with Dr. Sara Bolden

The pelvic floor holds everything we haven't been able to say.

Dr. Sara Bolden is a pelvic floor physical therapist who has spent years working at the intersection of structural function and emotional holding — where the body stores sexual trauma, birth experience, stress, and shame in the most foundational muscle group in the female body.

You can't fully heal what you won't touch.

🩸 YOU DIDN'T LAND HERE BY ACCIDENT.

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Today we are chatting with an extraordinary woman who helped me immensely in healing my pain, extraordinary human, Dr. Sara Bolden.

She is a licensed physical therapist, board-certified women's health clinical specialist and certified functional medicine provider. For over 18+ years, her focus has been helping and healing individuals with pelvic pain, urogynecologic disorders, and pelvic floor dysfunctions. She is among the first board-certified women's health clinical specialists in the metro-Atlanta region and started Women First Rehabilitation in 2006, an exclusive pelvic floor rehabilitation practice devoted entirely to helping individuals with pelvic pain and pelvic floor disorders. Dr. Bolden is an alumnus of LSU receiving a BS in Biochemistry as well as Shenandoah University where she received her Doctor of Physical Therapy. She is the founder of What a Girl Wants Seminars, speaking across the country to educate women on their bodies, helps couples enhance their intimacy, and is also the author of What a Girl Wants: The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex.

Check out her website here.

770-485-7411

WFR Pelvic Health & Wellness Specialists

3233 S. Cherokee Ln Bldg 1000 Woodstock, GA 30188

Dr. Sara's Facebook page @wfr_pelvicspecialists on Instagram

Clickable Timestamps

  • 05:08 #1 Why Dr. Bolden decided to become a pelvic floor PT
  • 09:26 #2 Clearing up Pelvic Floor Myths
  • 11:09 #3 Diaphragmatic breathing
  • 12:24 #4 Stop Washing Your Vagina
  • 14:52 #5 The method that sets you free
  • 18:37 #6 Signs that it's time to see a pelvic floor PT
  • 21:28 #7 Dealing with Embarrassment & Emotions
  • 26:00 #8 Biohacking with Art

Key takeaways

  • 1 in 3 women have pelvic pain, don't be embarrassed, you deserve healing.
  • Yes, men have a pelvic floor and can have pain as well.
  • How your pelvic floor impacts the rest of your body, specifically your gut and bladder.
  • Why you should stop washing your vagina
  • How Dr. Bolden's unique method truly heals & empowers you, so you won't have to see her any longer.

About the Podcast

Your pain is not a design flaw.

Your body is not broken. And you were never meant to white-knuckle your way through a life that doesn't fit.

I'm Meredith Ochoa — ANOTHER F#%ING ARTIST. After 17 years of endometriosis, surgical failures, and being told my pain was psychological, I stopped outsourcing my healing and went in. I healed myself. I turned the journey into art. And I built this show to introduce you to every expert, practice, and buried truth that helped me get there.

Face Your Shit, Heal Yourself is a movement + podcast.

We cover chronic pain, hormonal health, endometriosis, autoimmune disease, trauma, cycle syncing, functional medicine, Reiki, Ayurveda, sacred sexuality, Taoist healing, psilocybin, and everything else the mainstream medical system doesn't want on your radar.

The only way out is through. This is how.

🩸all my links are here

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About the Podcast

Show artwork for Face Your Shit, Heal Yourself
Face Your Shit, Heal Yourself
Where art, truth, and healing collide.

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About your host

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Meredith Ochoa

Meredith Ochoa is ANOTHER F#%ING ARTIST—a former ballerina turned mixed media artist, author, photographer, and generational cycle-breaker who turned 17 years of excruciating endometriosis into a revolutionary body of healing artwork.

Her journey started in the shadows—recovering from an eating disorder, building pinhole cameras by hand, and falling in love with the alchemy of the darkroom. When digital photography took over, she challenged the movement by turning a scanner into a large-format camera—flattening depth to make the subject the negative. This integration of old‑world photography principles with new‑world tech became her signature technique, and the way she started revealing the stories our bodies keep.

But it wasn’t until she experienced a series of near-death menstrual experiences that the real unraveling began. After years of being dismissed by doctors, pumped with medications, hormones, and told “it’s all in your head,” Meredith took her healing into her own hands—she studied the infradian rhythm, dismantled medical lies, and healed herself of a disease the system said was incurable.

That liberation sparked Every Phase—a 13‑year art project (2021‑2033) creating a piece for every hormonal phase—Follicular, Ovulatory, Luteal & Menstrual.
The series is a moving blueprint for anyone learning to alchemize biology into fuel and biohack with art, whether their battle is endo or a heartbreak no scan can see.

Her work wages a visual war on medical gaslighting, inviting viewers to face their own contradictions: shadow and light, pain and power. Each piece is a mirror—and a key—for anyone told “it’s all in your head.”

Why does she make art?
Because images can slip past the gatekeepers of logic and land directly in the bloodstream.
Because authenticity is the first medicine.
Because living a lie almost killed her—and creation keeps her honest.
Because pain is power waiting to be translated, if you’re willing to face your shit.