BROKEN - More Often than Not we Define Ourselves by What we Can See

Many people will say to me during a physiotherapy session that they feel broken, or damaged. (more women than men)

I can’t help but wonder why women feel this way. The definition of broken is having been fractured or damaged or no longer in one piece or working order. Another definition is having given up all hope, despairing.

These definitions in themselves almost make you feel broken. The word damaged for many women can be feelings experienced after having a C section, or they have a diastasis. Maybe they have perineal trauma, low back pain or anything that makes them feel less than what society may have told them they should be.

I see many women who have given up hope. My theory is if you're in my office, there is still hope.

Society dictates who we should be, what we should look like, even how we should deliver our babies! Basically how we should or shouldn't live our lives. And I think women have more pressure on them than men. A woman is expected to be a wife, mother, businesswoman, all the while looking good. When we don't achieve this, we feel inadequate. Deep down most of us know these things are not that important, but we can't help but scroll through social media and see all the things we're not.

My role as a physiotherapist is so much more than helping people with their low back pain, pelvic floor dysfunction, or hip pain. I need to make you see all the things you are truly capable of and what you have already achieved. You are so much more than a diagnosis, than a body shape, than a birth story.

These things are important and they are part of who you are, but they don't tell us the whole story. They don't tell us of your kindness, of your spirit, of your generosity, of your determination, of all the things we cannot see with the naked eye. But more often than not we define ourselves by what we can see.

I want you to be more, more than you thought you were, more than a photograph, more than a social media parody of yourself.

I want you to be strong, capable, adaptable and resilient. If you want that, I am the person for you.

Nicola Robertson

Pelvic Floor Physiotherapist