Episode 124: Embodied Creativity & Pelvic Health: Nervous System Regulation for Creative Flow with Dr. Brittney Ellers
Podcast
Episode 124: Embodied Creativity & Pelvic Health: Nervous System Regulation for Creative Flow with Dr. Brittney Ellers
“Creative blocks soften when we root back into ourselves.” —Dr. Brittney Ellers
This episode is your invitation to explore creativity through the lens of embodiment, nourishment, and radical self-connection. I’m joined by holistic pelvic physical therapist Dr. Brittney Ellers, who blends physical therapy, energetics, breathwork, and deep curiosity to help women reconnect to the power of their pelvic space.
She guides us through a grounding root-breathing practice that reconnects you to your pelvic bowl, the sacral center of creativity. This simple yet powerful hands-on ritual invites softness, descent, and vibrancy back into the body. It’s a reminder that creativity doesn’t just live in your mind, it lives in your tissues, breath, jaw, and sacral center.
Whether you’re feeling stuck, overstimulated, or craving deeper embodiment in your creative process, this conversation invites you to descend and soften. With the reminders to chew your food and listen to your body. Plus, knowing some of the most powerful creative breakthroughs comes from returning to your root.
Questions to Reflect On:
Leave a comment on Substack or reach out on Instagram @chefcarlacontreras & @b.ellers to share your takeaway from the episode.
What does “embodied creativity” look like in my everyday life?
What environments help my nervous system feel safe enough to create?
What beliefs do I hold about my pelvic space, power, or sensuality?
Is this truly a creative block, or am I in a season of refinement?
How does my energy shift throughout the month or season?
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform while you cook, clean, or create. Get the full show notes & transcript below.
xo Carla
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Disclaimer: Always seek the counsel of a qualified medical practitioner or other healthcare provider for an individual consultation before making any significant changes to your health, lifestyle, or to answer questions about specific medical conditions. If you are driving or doing an activity that needs your attention, save the energy practice for later. This podcast is for entertainment and information purposes only.
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Dr. Brittney Elers
As a holistic pelvic physical therapist, women's health educator, podcaster, facilitator and guide, Brittney’s mission is to help her clients and students THRIVE in this life.
Brittney found her niche in pelvic healthcare after graduating with her doctorate in physical therapy and moving through the healing of her menstrual cycle and pelvic floor pain. Since then, she’s helped many clients heal and overcome their pelvic health issues as well. She’s proud to offer individualized pelvic healthcare to her clients and witness their journeys.
It’s been her mission to tackle the “taboo,” educate openly about pelvic issues, and be a guide for healing and accessing one of the most vital and powerful parts of your body through movement, embodiment practices, powerful conversations, and sacred rituals.
She believes the pelvis is the root, the center of and foundation for life, creativity, and confidence. Let her show you how you can gracefully move through your reproductive years into menopause, while embodying the brightest version of yourself.
Find + Work With Dr. Brittney Ellers
Full Transcript:
Carla (00:01):
Welcome to Nourishing Creativity. The cycle of the last few years has left you and me feeling mentally, physically, emotionally, and creatively drained, nourish your very full life through interviews with creatives and entrepreneurs about how they create and move through their creative blocks. If you don't know me, I'm Chef Carla Contreras, a food stylist and content strategist. You can find me Chef Carla Contreras, across all social media platforms and more information in today's show notes. Brittany, welcome to the podcast. I'm so grateful to have you here. Can you introduce yourself and how you serve your community?
Brittney (00:48):
Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Carla. I am a holistic pelvic physical therapist, kind of a mouthful, but to make it easy on people, I like to call myself the therapist because we're reclaiming that word. I like to help people, help women mostly tend to their pelvic space and just harness all the powers that we have in our pelvic bowl from the physical aspect and the energetic aspect just so that we can live a more vibrant and embodied life.
Carla (01:19):
When was the last experience that sparked creativity for you?
Brittney (01:24):
You're going to laugh at this one, and I just want the listener to brace themselves a little bit or maybe not take a deep breath. I had a colonic done for the first time and then a second time, and that whole experience truly unlocked something for me. I let some shit go, literally.
Carla (01:43):
Literally.
Brittney (01:44):
Yes. Literally I realized I wasn't actually chewing my food as much as I should. There was still food in my colon, not poop. It was food recognizable pieces, and I was shook. And so I spent the next week before the second colonic focusing on chewing my food until it was mush in my mouth and then swallowing, and it made a huge difference. It was crazy how much creative juice started flowing because for me, a lot of what my work is is education and it is getting some of this wild information out there, and I started thinking about how I wanted to write the blog post about it, how I wanted to actually bring back my podcast season four to go right into colonics and even cervical admiration, which was another experience actually I had recently where I was guided into putting a speculum inside my own body to be able to view my own cervix, and that was the first time I'd ever done anything like that, which is kind of crazy, right?
Carla (02:53):
It's amazing. I mean, it's part of our body.
Brittney (02:55):
It is. No, for sure. But how many women have ever done that, especially if you've been in the pelvic health space like I have for almost a decade. I can't believe I hadn't done that yet, but you can buy a plastic speculum and learn how to insert it yourself, and then you can take that information with you even to go to the doctor and put this speculum inside yourself at your own pace, at your body's own pace.
Carla (03:19):
This is amazing,
Brittney (03:20):
Right?
Carla (03:21):
Yeah.
Brittney (03:21):
Unlocked a lot for me in terms of creativity and what I want to share moving forward. Just another way of empowering women people. I mean, I was telling my family because this happened right before Thanksgiving, so I went home for Thanksgiving and I was telling everyone at the table not about my colonics necessarily to those who would listen, yes, but I was telling everyone, you better chew your food because literally one chew could be the difference between another fart afterwards, like unwanted undigested food in your colon can then ferment and become gas later. How often are we walking around just with so much bloat and discomfort in our bellies and then letting it out when we don't want to or shouldn't want to?
Carla (04:11):
It's a beautiful reminder and this podcast is nourishing creativity and that nourishment part of actually being present and enjoying your food and chewing it and being there.
Brittney (04:24):
Yes, exactly. That's what I was noticing. I kept looking all around me and my now fiance, he chews his food like swallow, swallow, and I was like, babe, you've got to take your time with that. Enjoy it. We're all distracted when we eat, and I think it's something that we can let go of these distractions and come back to what you're saying, the conscious connection with our food and nourishing our bodies, and it ends up making a huge difference coming out the backend.
Carla (04:58):
It's amazing. Tell us, how do you define creativity when it comes to your work
Brittney (05:05):
Personally versus what my clients might experience? Those can be kind of two different things, but when I think of creativity, I always think about the sacral center, the sacral space, and that lives below the belly button in that pelvic bowl. And I mean I see it play out in so many different ways, but even in the creation of life and in the creation of new ideas and businesses and all of that, there are so many ways that you can obviously embody your creativity. But when I think about my work, part of what I feel is so fun about it is that I get to be creative in my work with how I am with people, and this is where I kind of veer away from the traditional pelvic PT space is I do like to blend in energetics. I do like to blend in coaching, I blend in human design, curiosity about astrology and their lineage and their history, and so I get creative in the way that I ask questions and or work with hands-on or hands in people's bodies. And every session is so different when I think about the in-person and or even online space, everything gets to be personalized to that particular human. And of course, because we're all very, very unique, so each experience is a unique opportunity for me to stretch myself and my creativity, and of course too, the interaction between a unique person and myself, also a unique person. We get to create something brand new each time we're together.
Carla (06:49):
Can you tell us about hands-on versus hands in, and we talked about this before we jumped on. Can you share with us the hands-on practice?
Brittney (07:00):
Oh yeah. I mean there are so many, right? That's another aspect of creativity. There is not one practice. It doesn't have to remain that way, and each time that one practice, even the one I'll guide you through upcoming, it doesn't feel the same each time. So that's why I think it's important to do your own hands-on and your own hands in. The hands-on that I do is it's variable. It can be very soft, very gentle. There's not a lot of force. Sometimes there's a little bit more of the feeling of getting a massage on a tough knot on the outside of the body, but when I work internally, so inside the vagina and or rectum, we can do both. It's basically just one gloved finger, and it's for me not about fixing or forcing anything. It is about meeting your body and meeting the tissue and the energy with wherever it's at in that moment.
(07:59)
So that's what I really want to invite you into right now. If the listener has this space and the curiosity, this is what I normally do for any kind of guided online thing, right? I mean, if you have any other curiosities, I suppose you could listen to the podcast. I do guided meditations there as well, but wherever you are, if you are sitting, that's great. If you're standing, you can do this too, but I just want you to take your hands and just rub them together, warm them up. My hands are freezing right now, so they do need that. And I'm holding the mic so you can just warm them up, feel the energy.
(08:42)
I want you to visualize a color that resonates with you right now, and when your hands feel warm enough, go ahead and place one hand in between your legs, cupping your vulva. If you're a female, you can place the other hand on top if that feels more steady, or you can take that second hand and put it right below your belly button over your womb space. This is what we call root breathing. As you take a deep breath in, notice how your top hand fills and expands and your bottom hand does the same thing. When you exhale, your top hand contracts back and your lower hand also rebounds up.
(09:46)
As you breathe in, again, your pelvic floor descends down into the chair or into your seat or towards the floor, and when you exhale, it just rebounds up and lifts back. If you notice your belly with that top hand not getting much movement, I really want you to imagine a big balloon here, getting to expand, releasing any tension, keeping your hands where they are. I want you to take a deeper breath in through the nose and just slack in your jaw, part, your lips, and exhale out of your mouth. Try that two more times. Deep. Inhale through the nose, feel your hands move away from you and exhale out of your mouth. Keep your jaw slackened last time, inhale, soft shoulder, soft jaw, soft belly, soft pussy. Now come back to a breath in and out of your nose and call in that color that you warmed up your hands with. Imagine your body breathing in that color through your hands. Maybe you want to add some texture to it, some texture to your breath, some texture to the color. Maybe you imagine the color moving all throughout your body, giving life through your spine, through your heart, all the way down to your toes and to the crown of your head.
(12:24)
So taking this vibrancy from within with you into the rest of your day. Know that you can come back to this root breathing feeling maybe a little more grounded and fulfilled and nourished, and that's the connection to the root.
Carla (12:53):
That was magic. I would not have guessed purple was my color.
Brittney (12:59):
I'm purple. No, I love purple. That's my color.
Carla (13:05):
That's awesome.
Brittney (13:07):
Oh, you called it.
Carla (13:08):
That's so awesome. I love this practice. So when can we do this practice?
Brittney (13:12):
You can do it whenever you need it. Anytime you're feeling unsettled, anxious, worrisome, curious if you're bleeding, not bleeding, if you feel stuck, just connecting back to your center down to your root. Our pelvic floors are, of course, this is why it works interwoven with your breath, and so when you take a moment to take these deeper breaths, it sinks you down. And in which for me, when I think about making any decisions, creative or not creative in my business, in my personal life, if I'm moving from a super heady space, I know that usually those decisions aren't the best. And if I can take a moment to drop in and descend into my pelvic bowl root down, I know I'm going to make a better decision. I know that the creative inspiration for an idea that I didn't know that was even an option prior that comes through in those moments.
Carla (14:21):
This was so nourishing. This literally is the creative process that I was going to ask you about. But I want to get into and weave in my question about creative blocks because you had a recent podcast episode where you talk about the energy of refinement, and I want to go deep into that. What does that look like for you? When I say creative block versus refinement?
Brittney (14:51):
Refinement? For me, especially when I think back to that episode, it's like I was looking at so many things that I had done in the past for work, a whole smorgasbord really of things that I'd done and all of it was really great in the moment, and I was starting to feel super overwhelmed by everything that it was and everything that it could be. And I ended up just putting it all on a board and I would think about, okay, how do these pieces fit together? And I would kind of just play a little jigsaw puzzle with it all and whether it was going to fit or not, that was what I had to think about. And the refinement still hasn't fully finished. It's still in process, but what I've come down to is just a simplification needed to happen. That's the process of refinement for me, is letting go, coming back to the beginning of our episode, letting go of a lot of shit that doesn't need to be there anymore or it served its purpose.
(15:59)
And I'm grateful that I had it as an experience, that it was an offering that lasted for however long and now it's done. We're complete. The creative block part, they can go hand in hand right through the process of refinement. I'm trying to think creatively of how some of these things could go together and where in the process should these pieces land, and I do feel sometimes blocked with what does that look like and how will this actually serve my people? Does it serve me when I feel blocked? I really do have to pause because I'm not trying to force something into a framework that just doesn't work. That's just not for me. You and I, were both projectors and there are certain parts of my design where I know I'm not meant to show up all the time. I'm just not. I have a second line, I'm a hermit.
(16:57)
I don't want to be called out all the time, and I don't have the energy to show up for unlimited Voxer. You know what I mean? And yeah, some people really thrive off of that and do really well with that, but for example, I just can't do it. So I have to get creative with how I do want to show up for the people I want to work with. And I've definitely experimented a lot in the past. One-off workshops Monday through Friday, availability, few calls here, a few calls there. But yeah, I'm still in a refinement of what that wants to look like, and sometimes it's a release of what you think it needs to be and it's like let it be what it wants to be.
Carla (17:41):
And you have seasons of your podcast too.
Brittney (17:44):
You're spot on. I'm so glad you caught that because part of my whole thing with creativity as well is I love to work with my menstrual cycle. I ovulate and I bleed every month, and I do feel that big creative burst right after my period and a lot of energy comes through, a lot of new ideas come through. I want to be talking about a lot of things during ovulation, and then it kind of slowly comes back down in that late luteal where I just don't want to be out and about all the time with everything that I'm working on. But if I have a system in place, which this is part of the experimentation is the entire first season was basically every other week guest episodes. They were long, they're long to edit, so I appreciate what you do here, right? I think I did the same thing with the second, but with a third.
(18:37)
That was when I had this hit earlier this year that I wanted to be doing more of these guided meditations. I wanted people to experience the magic of what I offer in person or what could be felt online. And I also wanted still to have guests, so I basically mixed it up where I did four solo episodes, 10 guest episodes, and 10 meditations, and part of the other piece with the meditations that was so fun and cool was getting to work with a sound artist, Julia, shout out. She's incredible. And that was also just a creative back and forth where we never forced anything. When the time was right, it was when it was right and it came out when it needed to come out. There were some times where I was frustrated because I didn't have my shit together and I didn't have the thing written, and so I got it to her late and or unquote late. It really wasn't late. It was all in perfect timing, and we allowed whatever energy was present for that theme, right? I didn't give anything a name until after it was basically complete, but there were definitely themes to each of those meditations that we did together, which I believe we did four, maybe five, and they were just so, so good, so so good.
Carla (20:05):
I can't wait for people to listen to them. I'm going to put the link to your podcast and the one activation that I did do, the music is unreal. It's an experience with you speaking and with the music blended in. Can you share with us how we can find you, how we can work with you, how we can support you?
Brittney (20:28):
So you can find me at my website. That's brittany ellers.com, spelled B-R-I-T-T-N-E-Y-E-L-L-E-R-S, and I'm also on Instagram for the most part, YouTube, all the places. Honestly, descend is going to be my new one-on-one container, and that's going to be a six month experience where we get to really dive deep together. Part of the projector magic right, is being one-on-one with people and really going there and not just staying surface level with not that pelvic PT is surface level by any means, but it can feel that way. It can feel very topical, and it just has so much more to hold when we can take the time to go in together. And then vaginal alchemy, I'm going to bring back the live version and it's going to look different than it had in the past where it was just five weeks in a row. We're going to stretch that a bit so we get more time together. I'd love for anyone who is interested in joining and feeling the magic sign up for the newsletter, and we'll go from there.
Carla (21:33):
Thanks so much for tuning in to Nourishing Creativity. You can find me, chef Carla Contreras across all social media platforms and more information in today's show notes. While you have your phone out, please leave a review on iTunes or Spotify. This is how others find this show. I really appreciate your support sending you and yours so much love.