Patient Fabulous was freshly back from her trip to South America. She is an independent health consultant in Brooklyn, and has been for some six or seven years.

The last six or seven years have not been easy on Fabulous. Despite her passion and expertise, she has struggled with financial solubility for most of her professional career. She finds it difficult to sell health here in New York, and even more difficult to charge an amount that would help her pay herself after expenses.

The stress has taken its toll on Fabulous. Her anxiety level is sky high. She has little day-to-day enjoyment anymore because her neighborhood is gentrifying. All the artistic haunts and mom and pop stores have disappeared.  Her friends have departed for other cities one by one, and she finds herself lonely and frightened.

Fabulous came to me because of the pain in her neck (see Dr. Claire).

For six months, Fabulous was having trouble turning her neck. The pain woke her at night and made her days increasingly unbearable.  She felt like her head was too heavy for her neck; just lifting herself off of her pillow in the morning was a chore.

Sometimes We Need Help

She tried every way she knew to take care of herself. She did all the stretches she knew of, strengthening exercises, meditation, yoga, supplements, eating right, but none of her expertise was helping her get rid of this pain in her neck.

The went to acupuncture, had massage, physical therapy, and finally she decided to try chiropractic. Fabulous is early in treatment, but she is already starting to respond.

The pain in her neck is subsiding, and its function is returning.  Which are all good side-effects of chiropractic.

But they are not chiropractic.

Chiropractic is something else — something else entirely.

And Fabulous is learning what chiropractic is.

With every adjustment, Fabulous is getting more and more clear.

The real jewel of chiropractic is removing interference between the mind and the body. By clearing interference to the nervous system, chiropractic helps turn your life force potential on. It helps you get clear. It brings light to your life and clarity to your world.

So your body heals, but so does your mind.

Fabulous is getting clear.

Fabulous set a health retreat in South America, and had just enough participants from New York to cover her expenses. While conducting the retreat, she met people from Canada, Europe, Brazil, Ecuador, Columbia, and many other places, who responded to her message, became excited by her work, and got on her mailing list.

Fabulous was in my office, fresh from South America, bubbling over with excitement. The people she met from around the world have invited her to come to their countries and teach their clients her wisdom.

But that would mean shutting down her practice here.

Now Fabulous has a choice to make. She is grappling with the question: is it wrong to quit what she is doing in order to chase brand new opportunities?

One part of her, a major part, feels that if she quits doing what she’s doing, she will be a failure in her own eyes to herself, and in the eyes of her peers.

The other is excited that her work is valued by a whole other set of people who she never even considered were a possible audience for her work, a set of people whom  she never would have met had she not first taken a chance to host a program in South America — a move that was already outside of her own comfort zone.

She asked me my opinion, the answer to which is the point of this blog post:

Sometimes Quitting Is An Option

Quitting, and all that it connotes, is not necessarily unhealthy. Sometimes you have to look at your situation, the struggle you are putting into it, and be honest about the outcomes, or lack thereof.

Sometimes a good idea is ill-timed or ill-placed. Sometimes what seems like a good idea just isn’t. Some commitments should never have been made.

The sooner you can recognize you’ve made a mistake, the sooner you and your loved ones can recover from that mistake.

I’m not talking about flightiness, or starting one thing, finding it takes work, and then chasing another thing because its bright and shiny. In these cases, the way to success is to push through the boring and frustrating day-to-day details that make a worthwhile endeavor work, whether that endeavor is a business, a relationship, or a health program.

I’m talking about putting your heart and soul into something and running into brick walls all the time, not seeing that there is a door and an open window right behind you.

When one is on the right track, things seem to materialize to help that person stay on that path; similarly, when one is following an incorrect course of action, no amount of effort will help it materialize. It seems like the universe closes doors in every direction of effort.

What is Clarity?

Clarity means being able to step back and know the difference between an effort that simply requires tenaciousness and an effort that will end in futility no matter what you do.

There is no shame in quitting these latter scenarios. Indeed, it is a measure of strength to be able to realize when it is time to pivot and take a new direction.

It is a measure of spiritual health, which ultimately feeds your emotional and physical health.

That is how chiropractic helps. It connects one’s body and mind with the spiritual through the health of the nervous system.

It is why Fabulous knows now that she has a choice, which is why her neck is feeling better and stronger. Her neck health reflects the scope of vision she now has, and her ability to choose her path. She has the ability to choose now.

So do you.