The Rural We: Erica Rodas
The occupational therapist has opened a practice that explores holistic pelvic health.
An occupational therapist by training, Erica Rodas worked in the oncology space with breast and gynecological cancer patients in New York. Just before the pandemic, she stepped away from the practice because she noticed a gap where women coming out of an intense experience were not getting the care and support they needed. She began developing her company, Rubia, with program centered around women’s pelvic health. Roads offers workshops and private consultations Her series, “Rewriting Relationships with Our Female Body” is currently underway at Berkshire Pulse. She encourages people to drop in the final sessions on May 8 and June 12 at 7:15 p.m.
I was living in New York and exploring different places and ways I could offer my skills. During the pandemic, I developed a program where I began guiding women virtually, inviting them to step into a sense of agency and to realize the emotions the body was holding. I’ve continued that work for amost three years now. I left NYC in 2021, lived in the Hudson Valley for a year, then discovered the Berkshires, where I live now.
With my deep dive into pelvic health, I’ve seen the fracture that women and those in female bodies have with their pelvic space. There's an opportunity to radically rewrite this relationship. As we turn inward and come into the physical shape we’re living in, we can get to know our bodies as a place to anchor into our power, and to understand events like birth, menstruation, our sexuality, and our creativity as ways to fully express oursevles. Too often we’ve been oriented with our bodies through pain, a diagnosis, or the conception journey and can find ourselves operating from our head. As we turn inward and come into the physical shape we’re living in, we can navigate these events and bring some power and agency into our lives.
So far in my series at Berkshire Pulse we’ve celebrated the feminine; explored the physical and energetic landscape of our pelvis; looked at the seasons of our body; and talked about menstruation and the feelings it brings up in us. On May 8, the discussion will be on pleasure and intimacy, and on June 12, the creative cycle.
One woman told me, “I feel like you introduced me to some magic inside my body.” When you create the structure and safety, as we've done in the series, it’s very intuitive for women to begin the journey. Wherever people are, they’ll find it when they need to. There’s so much here — just knowing there’s a place to come and explore and ask awkward questions creates a space where every women gets to come into her own power and lived story.
