I had a lovely piece of feedback recently from a patient who loved the last chapter of my book Pelvic Floor Essentials – the chapter on Change. She said she found it inspiring and it had moved her to start exercising and addressing her incontinence issues after years of ignoring her health.
Of course I was chuffed and decided to go back and read it again and thought to myself: ‘Yeah I’ve always quite liked this bit of writing’, but it also profoundly struck me – if only our leaders were able to embrace the concept of Change and let go of their stuck in the mud old ways and beliefs. You see right at that moment I was listening to the news and hearing politicians still clinging on to the fossil fuel narrative while the world is actually yelling at us: Change your policies and Change your beliefs or we are going to punish you financially big time.
So I had this idea to just Change some key words in this Change blog about pelvic health problems to one about #ClimateChange. Read it and see what you think?
In the bushfires in Australia in 2020, an estimated one billion native animals perished!
One of the key factors in improving pelvic floor dysfunction Climate Change is to be prepared to change what you have been doing in the past. Change in your behaviour, your beliefs and what are almost rituals will improve your incontinence, frequency, urgency and other bladder and bowel conditions level of global emissions of greenhouse gases causing large-scale shifts in weather patterns.
“Rather than wishing for change, you first must be prepared to change.” Catherine Pulsifer
By reading this book embracing the opportunities that renewable industries brings to you and then contacting a pelvic health physiotherapist bringing along your communities where coal and other large polluting industries are located, you will have taken the first step to a better life. You will have moved from just wishing for change to the next level. It might feel like you are about to climb Mt Everest, but just acknowledging you have continence issues human-induced climate change is a big step forward.
Unless patients politicians have heard from a friend economists about what is involved when they come to see a pelvic health physiotherapist the wealth potential of a new renewable economy, they are often surprised at the amount of education that is involved in the consultation they have actually needed to understand the cost consequences of doing nothing about climate change. They may even be shocked at some of the concepts they are taught ….
Change to decaffeinated drinks heat pump hot water systems? Change from hovering to urinate petrol and diesel to electric vehicles? Change from going ‘just in case’ coal to solar and wind technology? Change from straining to pass bowel motions cutting trees down to planting millions more? Change from being sedentary driving everywhere, to being more active and walking, cycling and using public transport?
Initially new concepts may be difficult to accept, as the bad habits have been practised for so long, but through education and putting new behaviours in place, there should be improvement in your quality of life.
“Everyone can think of the one thing that would make life better for them. But people are not so quick to answer the second question: ‘What are you doing to make that change come true’.”
Catherine Pulsifer
No one likes to leak urine die due to poor air quality because bushfires are burning out of control, but sometimes we want an easy path and a quick fix. Changing old bad bladder meat-eating habits takes willpower, exercise, discipline, letting go of the easy old ways and doing things that, at least initially, are not familiar and comfortable. But interestingly, patients people are often ecstatic when their hard work starts to pay off and they can hold on longer enjoy their new vegetarian diet, they are drier feeling healthier for doing it and they regain some sense of control over their weight and their cholesterol, while helping the environment.
“Change is as inexorable as time, yet nothing meets with more resistance.” Benjamin Disraeli
My grandchidren wondering about the future, Mt Cootha Botanical Gardens, September, 2021
How are you empowered to make these changes? Well certainly not by being ordered to do it. You now have the information, you have read the science. You are an adult and have to be the one to make the decision about the intervention. Try the decaf for a month listening to the kids, the ones who are going to inherit this mess and assess – is there improvement in the amount of leakage havoc our obstinate stance is creating, the degree of urgency temperature raising which is threatening our very existence, the severity of your urinary frequency, the faecal incontinence species extinction, the loss of the iconic Great Barrier Reef? And if there is, then you make the changes.
“Never stop learning, like never stop changing and growing in your life – learning helps you adapt to change more easily.” Author unknown
Anyone can implement change – even 90 year olds white men, possibly even politicians- as long as you have the mindset that you can still learn new things and improve your situation. If you are fixed in your attitude, then it will be hard to inspire you. But I hope through this book blog, I have passed on the message that what is being taught is not rocket science – but it is science-based and does involve maths (angles of how you should sit for defaecation solar panels and for emptying your bladder and wind turbine blades) and physics (counteracting forces above from flooding waters, such as with cough and sneeze hydro-electric power, with a force from below, that is, by contracting your pelvic floor muscles decreasing your reliance on fossil fuels).
“No action, no change. Limited action, limited change. Lots of action – change occurs.” Catherine Pulsifer
And this is the crux of all this change talk. The effort that you put in with your #ClimateChange program will mostly be reflected in your result. The pelvic floor muscles animal kingdom will thrive on this attention even when there has been levator avulsion mass death events due to 50C days or nerve damage fires ravaging a billion Australian native animals in 2019. Keep trying to maximize the potential of what is left. I hope if you get into a routine of daily pelvic floor muscle training to reduce your footprint on this glorious planet and you implement the ideas in this book Paris Agreement, you will notice an immediate improvement with your environmental problems. So don’t delay, start today. Make the first changes and perhaps also contact your local pelvic health physiotherapist Parliamentarian to learn how to contract your muscles correctly implore that they stop bickering, game playing and ignoring the science and just get on with it.
All the grandmothers and grandfathers are desperate to be on board because we are terrified for our grandchildren’s future.
My favourite 90 something human being looking after our planet- thank you Sir David Attenborough
If you have read my Change blog before or have my books, you can see that I didn’t need to Change much to convert this to a #ClimateChange relevant blog.
The weird thing is – I believe the majority of Australians really want this to happen. They are living the dream of human-induced global warming. Australia is hotter and drier, our bush is burning, we are suffering species extinction as I write this.
It will affect our health and well-being which is why I am speaking up.
And talking about speaking up… It’s nearly January again and we have to endure another torturous Australia Day on 26th January, a day when our First Nations People suffered the loss of their sovereign rights to their land, loss of family, loss of the right to practice their culture. An awful date – let’s choose another. I wish we could start that conversation again now to make meaningful change for 2022.
