My book club recently read a book called
Present Over Perfect. The gist of it is about allowing yourself to be present in whatever season of life you are in rather than constantly striving for perfection in all things. I have actually finished the entire book but did appreciate the overall point. It has definitely helped me pause to enjoy more moments with my kids instead of obsessing over the cleanliness of my house and overflowing laundry hampers. I definitely need those reminders on a regular basis thanks to my type A personality and my anxiety
(see my blog post on what anxiety does to your body here).
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Present Over Perfect
by Shauna Niequist with a glass
of wine and some chocolate |
When I treat patients with pain, be it pelvic or pain elsewhere, they often have perfection in their heads. I get it, I have been there. If you need proof that I actually do get it, check out my blogs about my own pelvic pain journey
HERE and
HERE. It's easy to assume that your body is supposed to be perfect to work correctly. When you experience years of painful intercourse, it often takes an eternity to get it diagnosed. Over time, you start to fear that you'll never be fixed and that your body is getting worse and worse. I mean, let's be real, oftentimes it IS getting worse. When one area hurts your entire body can start to move differently. With chronic pain you get actual changes in your brain chemistry that makes you hurt even worse. It's a pretty awful cycle. Pelvic pain gets into your head and makes you question everything from your health to your marriage to your fertility. There is a big component of shame and embarrassment to pelvic pain with a desperate need to hide it. It's a different beast than when you hurt your ankle running. Again, I know this, I run marathons and I've had pelvic pain, and trust me when I say that for most people, pelvic pain is something entirely worse.
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My husband and my imperfect self
on a family road trip, almost
9 years since my pelvic pain
was healed! |
But here is what I tell people: Your body does not have to be perfect to work well. Let's repeat that one more time.
You don't have to be perfect to work well, to be whole. In fact, our bodies were not meant to be perfect. If you look closely at your face in the mirror you'll notice asymmetries, little things that aren't quite perfect from one side of your face to the other. Guess what, that is NORMAL. It's what makes us beautiful and unique. Your body isn't made to be perfect symmetrical. Still, we get people in the clinic all the time who have been told that their "hips are off" or that "one shoulder is lower" and that
that is what is causing their problems. Here's the thing though - that's how your body was made. It's
meant to be a bit like that in most cases. Look at any elite athlete and watch them move. They are always going to have a side with more arm swing when they run, a dominant arm for shooting free throws, a leg that lets them do a few more pirouettes because they can balance better on it. It's
normal. The problem is that in their heads "being off" means that they aren't working correctly. Look, sometimes that may be true. Sometimes the little things that are "off"
are causing some problems, but most of us that's just how the body is made. You are not meant to be perfect.
Even so, when people come in to see me, they are terrified of their own bodies because they think their body has failed them in some way. They feel broken. I have felt that, it's so true. You end up feeling like even if the pain gets better your body still won't do what it is supposed to do and that you're doomed to a sexless marriage. Or if you think that maybe one day you'll get to have sex you
but won't be able to run or exercise because your body is a failure. Or maybe you'll be able to exercise
but definitely never ride a bike or sit through your kids' ballgame on the hard bleachers. There are lots of "buts" involved. (No pun intended there.) These thoughts and feelings are completely legitimate, pelvic pain is so scary because no one talks about it. However, there is so much hope. Before you had pain your body functioned just fine. What needs to happen is not getting everything magically perfect, but instead re-teaching your body how it worked before. How to function well in all its imperfection. And you WILL function well again. It takes a lot of attention, specific training, tweaking of how you move, but it'll get better. It also helps once the ideal of perfection is officially out of your head. Because guess what, your body is going to work well without perfection.
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With my friend Tracey after finishing my third marathon with
a ton of imperfections, my weak abs for one because of my
pregnancies.
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| Imperfect but whole and beautiful. |
On the beach this weekend I found some sand dollars. For me, sand dollars have a special meaning. Last summer I was in a very dark place and I was desperate for a sign of comfort. I had lost someone beloved to me and I was devastated. My blog isn't about religion, but I'll share that I believe in God and while running down the beach alone I started praying for a sign. I asked specifically a sand dollar because I had never in 35 years found one on the beach, ever. I knew it was wrong to pray for that but I did, like I said I was desperate. As I reached the end of the beach a perfectly formed sand dollar was lying in my direct path. For me, I knew it was my reminder that my loved one was okay. I know some people wouldn't agree, but it's my blog so I get the last word. Kidding. But technically I do. Anyway, this past weekend, 7 months after I found that first ever sand dollar I was running again on the same beach and found
five sand dollars. It's that time of year for them to wash up I guess. But I chose to think of it as a sign of peace. However, this time, they weren't perfect. Not one of them was.
But they were all whole. Let's read this once more -
they were imperfect but whole. (Another
but y'all.) Like me, like you. Like those of us suffering from pain. We will never be perfect, but our bodies are whole and our bodies will work well. Perfection is not attainable. Our hips aren't going to be perfectly symmetrical, our pelvic floor muscles aren't going to work the exact same on both sides. There may always be certain positions during intercourse that aren't the best for our bodies. But there will be others that
are. There are ways to use our bodies that allow them to work well. Without being perfect.
My job is so amazing. I get to teach people how to be present in their imperfect bodies and accomplish the goals that are important to them. I get to take life lessons that I have learned from books, pain, and loss and use them for good. My past has had times of difficult, but those times get to be beautiful now because I have learned from them. All of these lessons translate into healing pelvic pain. Healing pelvic pain is complicated, it's challenging, it's lots of imperfection.
BUT, it's not impossible. Every person deserves to learn how amazing their body is and learn to use it without pain. To see how beautiful it is in all its imperfection. To learn to be present over perfect.
Dr. Lacy Kells PT, DPT
The Physio Down Low
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