Peace Chiropractic Arts

Gentle, vitalistic chiropractic in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn

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Chill Out in Five Minutes or Less

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I made a Facebook video, “Chill Out in Five Minutes or Less,” last April.

I embedded the video below.

But first…you need to know that the reason I posted it isn’t the reason I gave in the video itself.

I want you to know why I posted it.

I posted it because something happened to a woman on Facebook.

Last April, a woman with whom I am friends (but I don’t really know all that well; I met her at a conference years ago) on Facebook begged her Facebook friends to please be gentle.

It was regarding the death of a murderer who had just killed an innocent man.

This woman, 60 years of age, had grown up next door to the murderer and his family.  The parents and siblings of the murderer were her friends.

Her post was a preemptive plea.

The news had just broken and she was anticipating the venom that can arise in these matters.

She knew the family was going through their special version of hell.

I was going to quote her, but she has since removed the post.

Apparently, the plea fell on blind eyes and people posted vicious responses. That’s why she removed it.

I’ll try to paraphrase her post from my memory.

In essence, she wrote:

“Please be kind. I know it is in our nature to verbally attack and condemn people and situations of which we only know little. Please be respectful of the families who in this case are truly innocent, have to deal with the aftermath. Please know that they are truly remorseful for the victims of their family member’s actions and wish them only peace and love. Please respect their humanity.”

Reacting vs. Responding

When we are outraged, it is easy to forget that, sometimes, people need kindness and understanding.

This is a great big world with many people. They are living many stories.

Sometimes, these stories collide.

Social media often provides a sense of separateness, as if the people to whom we respond aren’t real.  That they aren’t human. That they deserve viciousness that we would never dare utter to a soul face to face.

When we feel that rage, it is crucial that we take a breath before we react.

When we pause and take a moment to respond, we are taking charge of our emotions.  We are taking charge of our morality.

We are taking charge of our inner and outer health.

Reacting online is a type of road rage.

I sometimes fall into this trap.

I sometimes hear a news report and I inwardly fly off the handle.

It is during these times I apply the technique outlined in the video below.

So in the video, I lied. A little.

In the video, I told my viewers it was about getting rid of headaches.

And it is.

But that’s not why I made the video that day.

I really was thinking of the woman who pleaded for written mercy and who was denied that mercy.

It was for her that I made the video.

Reacting with hatred hurts everyone.

What happened to her, to her friends; indeed, to the victim, seems endemic these days.

Whether online or in the flesh, people who react violently and ignorantly seem like they are in our face 24/7.

Of course this has an affect on our outlook, the way we see the world, and our health.

There are tons of studies that show that rage hurts our physiology, as well as the physiology of everyone who is a receiver of that rage.

Rage itself is a killer.

I, too, have to remind myself that the only way out of the morass of moral chaos is calm, stillness, compassion, and peace.

The video below teaches how to chill out in five minutes or less. It teaches how to gain that peace quickly.

Chill Out in Five Minutes or Less

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If the above link doesn’t work, you can watch it here.

There is no downside that I know of regarding following its instructions. The worst that can happen is that you fall asleep.

The best is realizing that you have control of your inner situation, and if that’s true, that you have control of your outer situation.

Use this technique. It is my gift.

It is my gift to you and to me.

Let’s all remember to take a step back and focus on our own journey before we insult and judge those who we feel “safe” to condemn.

This is my mission:

To help us clear our nervous system of stress so we can get to the business of living well.

If we can live well, we will gear our efforts toward helping each other rather than hurting each other.

Over the last ten years, I have helped many people reduce interference to their brain and nerve systems via chiropractic adjustments, lifestyle adjustments, and mindset adjustments.

It is the single most important thing in the world to me.

I am opening my chiropractic practice this week in Amsterdam. I am SUPER EXCITED about that!!!

I am also so grateful that technology has gotten us to a point in which I am available around the world through my online coaching company, JOY! Health and Bodyworks.

What I do in JOY is everything I do for my patients in the office, minus the chiropractic adjustments.

Those you need to get from your local chiropractor, and I can help with that. I also help you find practitioners like psychologists and counselors to aid the process as well.

Those are just some of the bonuses with working with me in JOY!

You can take a look at my programs here.

You have a blessed day. Talk to you soon!

How to Spot if You Are Talking Yourself Out of a Good Thing

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How do you spot if you’re talking yourself out of a good thing?

I’m not talking about an impulse buy. I’m talking about that noun — that person/place/thing/idea  — that you’ve been thinking about for weeks.  Months.  Years.

  1. Are you taking too long to think about it?

Whether it’s an idea, a pair of jeans, an opinion, or a bag of (fair trade, organic) nuts; are you deliberating longer than you should?

You know you want it. You even know you need it. You want to say it. It needs doing.

But you just sit there with it in your hand and your heart, looking at it. Deliberating over it.

  1. Are you worried that someone else won’t like it?

Is there a familiar sickly tug inside that is trying to remind you that you have to check with your wife/husband/daughter/boss/friend/cat before you make a move on that thing in your hand and heart?

  1. Are you feeling voices?

You read me right. Not hearing…feeling.

Is there a feeling of a voice inside, that sickly tug, that is saying:

  • It’s not going to work.
  • It’s a waste of time and money.
  • That’s not your place.
  • You don’t deserve such a fine thing.
  • You haven’t worked hard enough for that.
  • That would be selfish.
  • No one wants to hear that.

  1. Is your attention starting to drift?

The thing is in your hand and heart; and you start remembering that you haven’t done the whites yet. You have to pick up your daughter in 45 minutes. You have to call your brother back. You wonder if that check has cleared in the bank yet.  You need to check your Facebook or Instagram to see if anyone liked your last post.

  1. Is there a pain in your body?

Wherever there is a “weak link;” is it starting to flare up?  Is your “bad” knee starting to hurt? Your back? Are you getting a headache? Do you feel nauseous? Are you getting gassy?  Is your elbow aching?

  1. Are you still staring at it?

Is your hand starting to vacillate between holding it to your heart and putting it back on the shelf?

  1. Are you repeating all of the above over and over while you stare at your good thing?

 

Then yes. You are talking yourself out of a good thing.

Here’s what to do.

  1. Stop thinking.

You’ve done enough thinking about it. You know you want it, and you know how to get it.

  1. Commit to it.

Shut down the nagging advisors.  They are not in charge. You are. This is something you’ve wanted/needed to do for a long time.

  1. Run to the checkout./Open your mouth.

Let the people in the really real world, the ones OUTSIDE your head, know that you are committing to your plan/idea/opinion/thing.

  1. Own it.

Whatever it is, make it yours.  Open it. Craft it. Shape it. Eat it. Use it. Do it.

If it doesn’t fit, if it doesn’t work, if it wasn’t what you thought it would be:

Fix it. Make it better.

Or gently release it.

It doesn’t matter.

This is what matters:

You made a decision.  You owned it.  You acted on it.

That’s what really matters in the end.

Something Will Beg You to Fear

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Fear is Holding Us Back

If you haven’t seen the movie, Defending Your Life, you should. It is an incredibly intelligent Albert Brooks comedy from 1991, starring Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep.

I don’t know many people who remember the movie, and that’s unfortunate.  For me, this was a bellwether story. It voiced something that I had felt for a long time, but for which I had no words.

It’s about a man who dies (needlessly) in a car accident and finds himself in Judgement City, a sort of weigh station for souls.

At Judgement City, he must defend is life, in terms of how much fear he was able to overcome. If he was judged that he overcame his fear, he could “progress forward.”

If not, he had to be “sent back (reincarnated)” to try again in a next life.

Defending Your Life did not deliver a brand new message, but it was presented in a way that I could understand in a meaningful way.

Art is like that. Each piece of art is its own perspective on a premise. It may speak to millions or one.

The premise of Defending Your Life, as I understand it, is that fear is holding us back from our evolution.

I agree.

I’m am not saying we don’t need fear.  We can’t do without fear. Fear is part of what made us.

But fear has its place.  These days, for us in the Western world, it need not take a huge place.

Have you ever driven a stick shift?

You have to play the clutch and the gas against one another as you get the car from 0-15 mph (or 0-24 kph).

You need first gear for that.  It’s important, but only for a few moments.

Imagine that you have a car.

The car is a stick shift — a manual.  It has seven gears.

Now imagine that the car you are driving is life itself.

Fear is first gear in the Car of Life.

First Gear: Fear

Fear is as old as life itself.

Without fear, creatures do not know when to remove themselves from dangerous situations. Those who don’t fear, don’t survive. Fear is primal.

I’m eating a root. There’s a big animal with sharp teeth moving toward me in the grass.  I run.  Or I kill the animal before it kills me.

That’s the “fight-or-flight” response. It is an autonomic (automatic) nervous system response called the sympathetic response.

Fear gets you away from the sharp-toothed animal.

Then I rest and eat my root.

That’s the “rest and digest” response.  That is an autonomic nervous system response, too. It’s called the parasympathetic (“around-the-sympathetic”) response.

These are primal, necessary nervous system functions, the health of which cannot be ignored. We feel them every single day.

But you can’t run a car in first gear. You’ll burn out the engine.

You have to shift to second, third, fourth, etc…

Each gear builds on the gains of the others.

Second Gear: Love

Nature decided that life should have a nurturing aspect. The very next thing that Life gave us was the ability to love and care for others.

I just ran/killed that sharp-toothed animal and now I’m eating my root.

I see my neighbor. My neighbor wasn’t so lucky. His leg is bitten and bleeding, and he’s sick.

I don’t know what to do, but my root makes me feel better. 

I share my root.

Without love, life is little more than fight/flight, rest/digest, pee/poop, birth/death, with a little sex for relief. Hopefully.

Without love, nothing beyond the will to survive is possible.

Third Gear: Forethought

This is where the animals start to separate themselves out from other animals. The act of planning is a huge evolutionary step.

I have to gather and hunt to feed myself and my family.  What if I cooperate with my neighbors? We are all good at this and that. We can take on different tasks to get the job done better and faster, and we’ll have each other’s backs.

How do I get that across to them? We need some way we can share ideas in common so we know how to collaborate.

And…

It took my tribe and I four days to hunt this animal, and another four to carry it back to the family. How do we keep it fresh until then?

Soon it will be winter and it will be difficult to find food.  How do we store our food so we can make it until spring?

Without forethought, there is no science, no logic, no language, no architecture, no innovation, no adaption. No progress.

The Fourth Gear: Choice

Without choice, we have no real autonomy and no way to communicate alternative ideas peacefully.

My aunt wants me to gather berries.  But I like to hunt.  Also, we have many people who like to pick berries.  I think we need more hunters.  I will hunt.

I can either hurt my aunt’s feelings or I can persuade her that this is a good idea.  I would rather we are both happy, because I love my aunt. I will persuade her.  

If I can’t persuade her, I can either cut myself off from her or remind her that, although I will not take her advice, I love and respect her.  I don’t want to be apart from my aunt.  I choose to tell her I love and respect her.

Without choice, there is no real respect for one another beyond fear. There is no peace.

What is the fifth gear of life?

The Fifth Gear: Wonder

Wonder is the emotional result of the realization that there are forces at work that are greater than you and your tribe.

When the moon is full, the tide is very high. When the moon is gone, the tide is low. The moon makes the water rise.  The moon must be very powerful.  I wonder how the moon does that? I wonder if the moon knows I am here?

Wonder can be painful. Sometimes pain can cause fear. Pain is sometimes necessary for growth to occur.

My father was laughing with us last night. This morning his body was here, but it was cold and he never woke up.  My father is gone.  My father’s body is beginning to turn to earth. The Earth must want my father’s body.  But without my father, I don’t know who I am, or what my life means. Where did my father go? What will happen to me? What will happen to my family?

But because we have choice, we can choose how we process pain. Wonder lets us do this.

When we kill an animal, its body is inside me, and in the earth, like my father’s body. Is the animal a part of me? Did it have a soul, like my father?  Is it part of the earth, like my father?  Are we all?

Without wonder, there is no appreciation of mystery. There is no philosophy. There is no wisdom. There is no Homo sapien.

The Sixth Gear of Life: Art

Art is our intuitive expression of wonder. Art isn’t just the appreciation of something bigger than ourselves: it is our interpretation of that which is bigger than ourselves.

The moon is beautiful. I want to draw the moon and the water.

My father was funny.  I want my daughter to know this.  I will act out stories about my father to make her laugh.

I like the way I feel when I raise my voice high and low. It makes me feel warm and wonderful. I will sing.

You may have noticed that, as the car accelerates, the car slips into the higher gears more smoothly and easily. It seems as if they are seamless.

The car slips so easily past the sixth into the seventh gear, it’s difficult to know where it began.

Seventh Gear of Life: Oneness

Oneness is not just our interpretation of that which is bigger than ourselves; it is our awareness that we and that which is bigger than ourselves are one.

When I sit very still, I feel the moon glow and the cool waters flow inside me. They are part of me.

When I act the part of my father, I feel my father inside of me. My father is still with me.

If I am still and think of the animal inside me, I feel it becoming part of me. If I let myself, I feel the animal in the earth. I feel my father inside me and in the earth. I feel we are all part of one another.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because sometime today, something is going to beg you to fear.

  • You are going to hear about xxxx who was a victim of xxxx, and the results are brutal.
  • You are going to find out that someone took away someone else’s power/rights/life.
  • You are going to face a challenge.
  • You are going to be judged, fairly or unfairly, on your talents, your looks, your skills, your wit.
  • You are going to be subject to someone else’s fear. It might look and feel like violence (in this case, it probably is).
  • Someone will believe in you, will trust you, will have faith that you will do the right thing.

When any or all of this happens, I want you to remember:

Fear causes pain. Pain can be necessary for growth. Pain can send you backward, or you can process it differently and move forward.

You have a choice. Wonder.

 

A Letter of Love. Are You A Sage or A Student?

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I have a confession to make.  The only things I really know for sure are the things I’ve done wrong.

I am in my 50s now; and I am old enough to realize that almost everything I thought I knew as a child, a teenager, and as a young adult, changed at some point.

When I was in college, I used to give advice to everyone. EVERYONE.

I honestly don’t know how anyone tolerated me.  If my memory is correct, I must have been insufferable.

I don’t know who told me that I was right about everything, but I most certainly thought that I was!  I look back now on those years and laugh.  I’m glad I can laugh.

Turns out, I was only right about some things.

I was right that I was good at writing. I was right that I have a good ear for music.

I was right in thinking that everyone should be loving and compassionate to each other, animals, plants, nature, and the planet itself.  I was right that we have a responsibility to do so.

I was right that love is a verb. It is not a stagnant state, one that simply exists. It is something we choose to embrace and act upon.

I was right thinking that the most important people in the world are the ones who choose, through blood or choice, to love us, to have our back, always, even when they know we are wrong.

This last is especially true.

About almost everything else, I was wrong.

That’s why I find it interesting when people younger than me automatically assume I have answers to life, the universe, and everything. They actually listen to me as if what I am saying carries weight.

I do have answers. I have always had answers.

I’m just not sure that they are right answers; and if they are indeed right, I don’t know if they will be right tomorrow.

It’s kind of an awkward thing to admit.

I mean, I am a doctor, by profession and training.

My specialties are chiropractic and natural longevity. I have a lot of schooling, training, and clinical experience to back up my opinions, and I try to keep on top of current science and research so that I can best serve my clients and patients.

I often find that what science believed was correct twenty years ago changes too.

Twenty years ago, we thought that genes determined our destiny. Now we know that the proteins that surround our genes determine the expression of the genes, and that we must protect the health of the proteins, as well as the genes, so that we can express ourselves properly.

That one statement is huge. It is also so new that there are still doctors alive who don’t know it.  But science knows it, and now you know it.

Fifteen years ago, we thought that the nervous system communicated only via its axons and dendrites. Now we know that harmonic resonance and electromagnetic waves can cause whole cities of nerves to fire simultaneously, instantaneously.

Huge.

Just two years ago, we thought that the only cleansing mechanism in the brain was cerebral spinal fluid. Now we know that the brain has lymphatic drainage, like the rest of the body. That may not sound like a big deal to you, but anatomy books the world over have to change, and doctors have to take this into account when addressing brain health.

In short, these are all game changers. They have changed the way science is approaching not only health care, but how we develop technology, bioengineering, chemistry…everything.

And those are only a few of the things that have changed since I was a teenager, even since I was a doctoral student.

There is something else that I think is true, but I haven’t told you yet.

Ready?

Here it is.

There is an intelligence that informs the structure and function of all physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual expression. It informs the structure of all consciousness itself, in all its forms. It is, in fact, universal, and each manifestation of the universal expresses a face of that consciousness. That consciousness also includes, but is not limited to, the universe itself.

Big words, right?

Science can’t prove that one yet. But faith and philosophy systems have been intuiting this truth at least since we figured out how the tides work, and how to light fire.

I’m willing to bet that’s true.

Chiropractic thinks it’s true.  That’s a big part of the reason I am a chiropractor.

I am also willing to bet that your body knows a lot more than any book written on the human body. Your body has a wisdom that lends itself toward life and the exploration of consciousness, and it wants to express itself through health as much as a plant in spring wants to grow toward the sun.

I think we have a responsibility to care for our bodies as much as we care for the ones we love. That we need to have our own backs, even when we make mistakes.

When we love ourselves enough to care for ourselves, we love life itself. We love the universal intelligence in us all.

Just something to think about.

I think about it every day.

By the way: the only reason I am sharing this, and everything I do, is because I love you.

Truly.

I want us to grow old together.  I want us to get smarter and wiser every day, without losing our sense of wonder.

I want us to be okay with knowing that we are going to learn new things as we go; and to know that the power of love never changes.

Let’s grow old well.  Together.

— Claire