** Chiropractic is the deliberate habit of living according to the brain's point of view. The spine is an extension of the brain.
We utilize the spine to enhance the brain's protection and rebuilding activities. **
This year, 2025, I will be celebrating my 25th year as a chiropractor.
So, looking back, what has changed in 25 years?
Back then, after graduation I was looking forward to meeting people. I had the simplest expectation. I would adjust their spines and and they would lead their lives in an enthusiastic manner.
Over the years, I have watched people lose their enthusiasm. They are entirely beat down. But before I unpack these loaded statements, let's revisit my chiropractic journey. (I still have a plan for the next 25 years.)
My passion for chiropractic began in 1995. I was looking for a better way to reach people who were in despair. Working in the mental health care field, people were shut off or shut down. They were separated from what made them great.
Why were people struggling? What was holding them back?
When I was completing my master's degree in clinical counseling, I was developing my own communication style to help people release their own personal chains. While they had to do it for themselves, the counseling process helped chip away each stubborn link. These are the links that they forged in place with their underlying fears, tragedies and unmet expectations.
Counseling helped people awaken to what they were really made of. Counseling gave people permission to regain their confidence.
My explanation here may seem vague, but as I type this I am reliving these encounters with my clients. As we dug up memories and reanalyzed them in a neutral atmosphere of nonjudgmental acceptance, the aha moment or fresh insight would restart a new rewiring process in the brain. They were inspired to adopt new behaviors that allowed them to find the personal success they were looking for.
This was not easy. The process stalled for most people because there's a great deal of social conditioning that needs to be extinguished.
I define social conditioning as beliefs and expectations we've grown up with. They give us structure and security. Not all of them are beneficial to us, however. At times we tend to over-embellish these beliefs and expectations to our detriment.
So, when I say the counseling process is not easy with people often stalling or staying stuck, chiropractic entered my life.
I learned chiropractic speeds up the process.
When someone is trying to release their own personal chains, chiropractic accelerates their progress.
Disclaimer: Results may vary. People are complicated and rewiring the the brain is individualized. No two nervous systems are the same.
If you look back in history 100 years, you'll discover the popularity of chiropractic mental hospitals. I wrote about it in my blog. People with mental distress got well and lived normal lives. I wanted to be a part of this.
Chiropractic is a profoundly exciting way to empower the brain so you can live in an empowered, inspiring manner.
And this moved me to follow the chiropractic path.
(Unfortunately the economic impact of WWII and political peeing matches led to the closings of these hospitals. However, there are still 2 existing chiropractic inpatient facilities for disabled children: Kentuckiana Children's Center and Oklahaven Children's Chiropractic Center.)
Here we are 25 years later.
What I find disturbing is people are not awakened to what they are made of. Instead they act as if they are defective. They have no confidence in their intelligent bodies. We are not growing as humans. I feel we are in a downward spiral. I hope the pendulum swings back the other way.
Early on in my practice people were determined to be healthy through the most natural route. They were assertive when it came to their health decision making.
Now people are full of fear. This was creeping into society before the pandemonium that was nicknamed covid. It seemed year after year my patients' prescription lists kept growing. The same people who swore they would not take medications began to give in. Why? It's not because they are older. Many people now younger than me are regularly taking pills.
If you watch incessant drug ads on TV, you can't help but be hypnotized into the magic formula of music and dancing people. Not a single one of those medications will help you dance. They rob you of your energy and then you blame the disease or aging. Rather than face the truth that a synthetic material with a fancy name might be harming your liver, heart, and brain, you allow it to chip away at your self confidence.
From an early age we are taught that we're not smart enough when it comes to health. Every time we are sick we receive the unspoken message that we can't wait it out on our own. We are told we need monitoring by a doctor because the human body cannot be trusted. We begin to believe we need elixirs not made by the body to get by. It doesn't take long for these beliefs to be solidified as they take up permanent residence in our brains.
As I write this, I feel as if my thoughts tumbling out of my head are so absurd. We can't be that easily swayed. Can we?
Why am I against the pharmaceutical industry? Why am I picking on them? Don't I realize some drugs are necessary? Plenty of room here for debate, but if you are going to debate, you should eventually have options. I don't see a lot of options. There's no more room for second opinions which I see as our downfall.
I won't solely focus on the drug industry, but they are a major factor in declining health. It is very evident this industry preys on our fears. This industry also plays a large role is misleading us on how disease works.
I could go all the way back to the science textbooks in our early schooling. The subtle messaging begins early. And if you want to finish college and that respected degree, you have to believe a lot of the rubbish taught. I believed it, because I trusted the generations of educators.
I was taught to be scared of the human body because it so complex and mysterious. There are so many terrible diseases that start out with similar symptoms that if I got it wrong then the wrong treatment would be administered. A misdiagnosis can send you down the wrong path, wasting your time, making you worse. You can go to any medical website, type in a few vague symptoms and be given up to 50 possible diagnoses. More panic and distrust of your mysterious body.
Forgotten history (when recalled) can help free us from our own chains. The first Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, published in 1899 was a mere 192 pages. It was probably published on thick crudely made paper compared to today's mass produced tissue paper. The latest issue has 3,854 pages printed on such thin pages that they will tear if you "leaf" through them too quickly.
This large tome must be proof that we have gotten sicker in the last 100 years. There are so many new diseases. Or, we didn't have the same lifespan. The average age of death in the 1890s was 42 years. So, that explains why these diseases weren't discovered yet. Funny, Ben Franklin lived to age 84 in 1790. I can't fall for that line of reasoning. And neither should you.
Unwanted Naming Game
Along with modern medicine is the multitude of tests. If we can measure it we think we can control it. And we think we know exactly what the body is doing. Blood pressure, blood glucose, cholesterol, insulin, enzymes, bone density, Xrays, MRI, CT scans, etc.
The reliance on tests has given us a certain ignorance. It's the new fangled short cut to put you in a diagnosis box that does more damage than good. How many friends and family have said, "At least I now what I've have." It has a name followed by a long list of treatments (mostly drugs.)
The label follows you around the rest of your life. It's in your electronic medical record permanently whether it was accurate and useful or not. It colors how the next doctor views you. Patient profiling. You're stuck. You are not a unique person anymore. You are a statistic. All treatment offered to you is based on a algorithmic math problem because of tests. And everyone is expected to meet the same criteria. For example, blood pressure must be below 120/80. This has become the most fear inducing measurement giving people a sense of helplessness.
You Are Not Standard-You Are Special
When I was in chiropractic college, I was taught "standard of care." There's standard medical care and there's standard chiropractic care. These are a set of typical approaches we needed to utilize based on consensus. Imagine a secret society sitting in a dark room taking a vote. Good luck if you request a certain treatment or test. If it didn't receive the popular vote, your concern is ignored or you might be ostracized.
I teach my practice members that they are unique. Their nervous systems are unique. Their own life experiences that are wired into their brains are unique. No one can be a textbook example. Each of us has an inborn, innate intelligence that carries us through our lives. I guess it's so amazing we can't believe it. But you are proof. Despite our social conditioning that we should live in fear, you are proof of something profoundly magnificent.
My Failure in This
I didn't do a very good job of helping people question the beliefs that keep them stuck. I've been in practice for 25 years and only a few people have caught on to the inconsistencies. Many of us are late bloomers. It's not a matter of being a slow learner, but that of being a slow un-learner.
Why would these health lies persist? What about the teachers with years of experience who I trusted? (I'm not going to list the "health lies" here. You know enough of them already. You already have experienced the health explanations that don't make sense to you.)
Chiropractic speeds up the process of personal growth, as long as you are open to it.
Most people go to the chiropractor to get rid of a pain. If you know me, you are aware that I teach the neurological definition of pain. It is a sensation created by the body in response to a stress. Everyone has a different pain barometer. You've known people who have a high pain tolerance. Even your pain is unique to you. I also teach the purpose of pain. We know healing hurts, but stopping the process prematurely leaves a person with weakness.
Chiropractic helps the brain and body relax, but it won't override the brain's function. If the brain needs to repair and rebuild, it will continue to do so. It won't stop the inflammation. It will boost the inflammatory process so it can complete the job. A chiropractic adjustment applied to a person with a fever may spike the fever so the body can complete the job. A relaxed body that isn't stuck in fight or flight can do the job more efficiently.
If we can reduce the fear response by changing our attitudes about the body, the adjustment can be more effective.
** Chiropractic is the deliberate habit of living according to the brain's point of view. (This is the opposite of the disease-model.)
The spine is an extension of the brain.
We utilize the spine to enhance the brain's protection and rebuilding activities. **
If we deliberately live according to the brain's point of view, health becomes simple.
We use chiropractic to enhance the brain's protection and rebuilding activities. This does not mean stopping pain. Sometimes we are pain free when fight or flight dulls our senses. Pain free may mean you are in a hyper vigilant state of survival and you are burning through your energy reserves.
My goal is to help you reclaim the intelligence of your body. I want you to get reacquainted with your body. Reduce the fear so you are confident. You can be empowered and not helpless.
Rather than focus on 25 years of declining confidence, it is an appropriate time to say, "Enough is enough."
Have we hit rock bottom?
Often great change is inspired by hitting rock bottom. At this point there is only one direction to go: UP! We all hit rock bottom at different times in our lives.
If you appreciate my message, let me know. Get under chiropractic care through the brain's point of view instead of society's fear based approach.
If my message doesn't make sense. I'm sorry. I'm still working on it. Sometimes a friend can explain it better than me.
Noting changes unless the brain changes.
We have gentle ways to introduce positive change so you can release your unwanted chains.
We must grow as humans. We must expand our minds and inspire our communities. Join me on the journey.
