When exactly did we divorce our pelvis?
So, I was talking to an incredibly cool and well-informed reporter the other day from The Chicago Tribune about this question of why, exactly, so many women know nothing about their pelvises. Why don’t we know what’s in there and exactly what it all does? Just that, alone, is amazing (and mildly ridiculous in this age of open access to information, the Internet and tons of digital data!). I mean, really, we don’t seem to want to know anything about this critical part of our bodies until……..
It falls apart.
Why is that?
Let me offer up my current theory - to be proven out in future research (I promise you!). I think we divorce our pelvises as young girls in this culture, the moment we have our periods. Just think about what we call it:
- Martha
- The “rag”
- The “curse”
It’s all positively so positive, isn’t it?
With that kind of language, what I suggest is that we really stick our pelvis “over there,” on the side, out of body and try to forget about it most of the time (except when the nasty little period thing happens).
When we are disconnected from our pelvis and go through major lifestage changes like pregnancy and menopause without our collective conscious tuned into what’s happening there for our bodies, is it any wonder that bad stuff happens? I mean, if we were paying attention to our pelvic health and fitness during pregnancy or before, during and after menopause, we would (at a minimum) be doing things like frequent pelvic floor exercises, trying to stay “regular” and watching our intake of bladder irritants, just for example.
But we aren’t. And many of us are suffering from consequences of being totally out of tune and out of touch with this very important place.
Take heart in knowing you are not alone AND take heart in knowing that there are many, many things you can do to help yourself - like diet and exercise, etc.. See www.womenshealthfoundation.org for just a few tips and topics.
What do you think? How do you feel about your pelvis? Do you remember a specific time you decided it was “icky”? Or, maybe I am wrong and there are some of us out there who aren’t children of the 70’s who were raised with more awareness. I’d love to hear from you about what that was like!
Meanwhile…..
Look for my next blog when I talk about the “5 centers” of the pelvis and a paradigm shift that could change the collective pelvic health and fitness of the world!