On Power, Pain, and Choosing to Build

HerAccess

A New Year reflection & HerAccess

Yesterday, after teaching a yoga class, I found myself sitting for an unplanned coffee with an extraordinary woman I know. I first met Stefanie Jolak years ago, when she joined my pelvic floor teacher training. Her path toward healing, her strength, and her willingness to be seen moved me then — and continue to do so now. In her, I recognize something deeply familiar.

When my own pelvic floor health challenges felt most overwhelming, I turned to research, practice, and a deep listening to my body. The moment I glimpsed real hope — the possibility of healing — I knew I would teach this work. If I could avoid surgery and significantly improve the quality of my life, I wanted to share that knowledge. Writing a book felt scary. But the calling was clear.

Stefanie is next-level courageous. She doesn’t only speak about what is broken in women’s health — she is building something in its place. She is the founder of HerAccess, a women’s health initiative focused on making vulvar pain more visible, understandable, and treatable within existing healthcare systems.

This matters deeply to me. Too many women I work with have spent years moving between clinicians, doubting themselves, being dismissed, or told that their pain is “normal,” psychological, or something they simply have to live with. HerAccess begins from a different premise: that conditions like hormonally mediated vestibulodynia are real, describable, and treatable — and that care works best when it is coordinated, informed, and humane.

Rather than reinventing treatment, HerAccess is translating existing clinical knowledge into a clearer, more navigable care pathway. One that brings together careful assessment, specialist insight, and appropriate follow-up — so women are not left alone to connect the dots themselves. The current pilot is modest by design, focused on safety, feasibility, and real-world experience. But its intention is anything but small.

Alongside the clinical core of this pilot, there is also a growing recognition of something I have seen again and again in my own work: pain does not live only in tissues. It lives in nervous systems, in fear, in vigilance, and in bodies that have learned to brace rather than trust. I am deeply honored to be joining the HerAccess pilot as part of the non-clinical supportive team, offering gentle, optional practices that support nervous system regulation, body awareness, and reconnection — elements that so many people with pelvic pain quietly long for, and so rarely receive.

Why am I telling you this?

Partly to cheer for this important work, and to send a loving shoutout to everyone living with pelvic pain. But mostly, as we step into a new year, to remind us of our power. Meaningful work so often grows from places of personal struggle. I watch with awe when people listen closely to that creative force — and act on it. People like Stefanie. 

The world has felt heavy and dark much of the time lately. When one of our guests at a Hanukkah party last week asked me why we lit so many menorahs (I may have gone a little over the top there), I explained that it felt like we all needed a lot more light. I’ll end with a line from a favorite Hanukkah children’s song: each of us alone is a small light — but together, our light is bright and strong.

So simple. So true.

Happy New Year.
May it bring us more light, and more love.
May we be able to harness our power for good.

With love,
Leah