Never Enough

We are all human, so be honest.  How self critical are you?  Do you feel as if you are just not enough?  For example, your efforts are not good enough.   At your job, with your finances, with your relationship, with your children, with your goals, with your everyday balancing of "stuff?"

When people come to me complaining of their back hurting, they are subtly saying to me that they aren't healthy enough to keep up with the demands of their life.  

When folks says they are not able to do yard work or house work, the underlying message is they are not enough.  They are not capable for whatever reason. 

This hidden self talk and unspoken anxiety are real health problems.  When your brain senses you are "not enough," it will break down the connective tissue of your body in order to build it back up again to make you stronger.

This is good news if the stress is short lived. But, if your stress is ongoing, there can be a re-triggering, relapsing issue. 

To your brain, it is equivalent to a life and death matter that requires intense strength such as running away from an attacker, or carrying an injured person to safety (for example).  

The fight or flight response picks up on your internal worry and goes into action to remedy the situation.  

If you go to the gym to begin a workout, you are telling your brain that it is crucial that you get into shape.  When you feel sore the next day, that is your body building tissue back up.  It may be that you over-exerted yourself, yet that nagging concern raises the bar and your brain does more than take the hint.  

When the "not enough" begins to be "never enough," people develop chronic dysfunction.  Most people would call this a chronic disease of some sort.  I call it an exhaustive period where you don't allow the body to rebuild adequately because of an constant re-triggering of the repeated self talk that you are not enough.  

Sorry for that run on sentence but I was on a roll.  This repeated message interrupts the rebuilding and initiates a new break down period.  Muscles, tendons, and bones start to erode again. 

But the erosion takes off where the new repair didn't occur. It's similar to jabbing a fork into a scab on your arm over and over just when the bleeding has stopped and the coagulated blood has just started to dry out. 

Chronic disease doesn't have to by a mystery.  We have to realize when the brain is in a hyperactive fight or flight at the expense of the restful healing period.  

The body is not wrong.  It is responding to perceived danger.  

We use chiropractic to relieve an overburdened nervous system so there can be more time to concentrate on reversing the depletion.

Brain first, and the body follows.  What is your brain working on right now?

--Dr. Lisa