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Sometimes Healing Hurts, Pt. 2

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“May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
May the rain fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.”

— An Irish Blessing, author unknown

 

My aunt was a nun.  She was Sister Theresa Fitzpatrick, from Garden City, Long Island (New York).

As a child, and into adulthood, I knew her as Aunt Rita.

Aunt Rita once gave my family a wall plaque with that prayer on it.

I used to stare at it and consider it, thinking that it was a beautiful wish, created by a beautiful someone among my cherished ancestry who had a flair for poetry.

The Irish love their poetry

As a child and a young teenager, I fell in love with the English language, and started to write every chance I got.

It made me feel connected to the Earth and her creatures, to God and to mankind.

As a budding young writer, I became a keen observer; and as I observed, I became aware of that which is not pleasant in human nature.

And as I later researched what I observed, I realized horrible truths that the Bible did not immediately reveal to me, but became self-evident upon observation:

That mankind was both God and The Devil, that we chose to act the way of The Devil, and that, because of our tendency for greed, visciousness, apathy, fear, and cruelty, we were making Hell out of paradise here on Earth.

I began to see my writing as a mission. I was going to be a great novelist, a great poet, a great playwright…my words were going to move the masses of sleepy destroyers into woke (before that was a thing) saviors of humanity and our planetary home.

It was all about communication

But as I passed into high school, as a nerdy, cerebral, emotional teen, I experienced cruelty, shunning, viciousness and apathy from my peers and adults outside my home.

My optimism for my and our collective future waned.

Truthfully, the only reason I did not commit suicide in those days was the Catholic belief that that there was something worse beyond this planet for those who took their own life. So later, when I no longer counted myself among those who call themselves Catholic, my faith system served its purpose for me at the time.

Instead, I searched for ways to “get in front of death.”  I drank, I smoked, I took drugs. I took unnecessary risks with my mind and my body.

I hung out with angry, violent societal misfits who were frustrated like me, but more on a micro level. Their home lives and careers were their hell, so I felt like at least on that level, I had it better than them.

That would change.

My anger became both micro and macro.  It turns out, when you hang out with people who give up on their loved ones, chances are, you lose faith in loved ones, too.

As I grew older, as an angsty teenager and a frustrated adult, I kept Aunt Rita’s plaque above my door out of a strange sense of loyalty to the child in me who once who saw beauty in those words.

But I would scoff at them as I passed under it to face another day of disappointment in life. I thought them fairy tale wishes, from a people who feasted on fairy tales, who were beaten into submission, almost to extinction, by centuries of usurpers who had nothing but contempt for my people, usurpers who had other ideas for the innocent.

The wounded Irish, the wounded me

Still, my inner child still wanted the beauty. She still believed, somehow, that life could be beautiful.

She was still alive, and she wanted to live.

And as I moved into my twenties, I tried to reclaim the passion for life and my dreams of poetry that I once had.

But,

The road seemed long and seemed to move farther away.
The wind seemed to push against my chest.
The sun seemed to burn my face if I dared to turn it upward.
The rain seemed either rare, or flooded my dry fields.
When I met those who loved me, I turned away.
God was a lie. I was on my own.

Fear breeds lonliness

For a long time, I shunned a life of service. I abandoned hope, so I created my own hell.

I became that which I feared most: angry, resentful, poor in spirit and home, and afraid.

All the time, afraid.

Why am I telling you all of this?

Because the mind follows the body, and the body follows the mind.

I ended up with pain from my reckless lifestyle, and that’s how I found chiropractic.

And that’s how chiropractic found me.

Moving from a pain model to a healing model

I was a pain patient for years before I realized that chiropractic was helping connect me to my inner child again, helping her cry out for life, helping her claw for hope.

This has not been an easy, nor a fast, healing process.

My home and career life fell apart three separate times before I decided to take a right-hand turn and become a chiropractic student.

I became a chiropractic student, and then a chiropractic doctor, long before I realized that my career choice was helping me heal myself, and that with every adjustment I received AND delivered, I was reconnecting my spirit with my body.

Only happy while serving is not enough

For a long time, the only time I was happy was when I was learning how to help others through chiropractic care.

Later, the only time I was happy was when I was serving through chiropractic.

But I still struggled for years with anxiety and the health consequenses to my body and life, and therefore, to my family and community.

Reclaiming my health one adjustment at a time

It has only been in the last few years I have begun to reclaim my inner and outer health, and the beauty I once saw in the world. It has only been in these last few years that I have been able to see through the clouds of my hopelessness to my own power and purpose.

Now, on this May Day 2018, I emerged from the Metro to a cold, windy, rainy Amsterdam day.

It was a short, inviting trek along the road to my office.
The wind was at my back, merrily quickening my pace.
The sun shines in my smile at my day ahead
The rain is falling softly on these fields ahead of me
My inner child and my wiser self are walking side by side
God is in my healing hands, and I am in Hers.

I was, and am, still healing.

I still see the mysery. I see it more, actually.

But thanks to years of reconnecting my nervous system with my physiology, I have reconnected to something I lost a long time ago.

I have faith.  I have hope. I have joy. I have love.

Because of this, I have reclaimed a great deal of my physical and mental health.

You are not alone. Neither am I.

In my office, I see in others the hell that I created for myself on a micro level.

They walk into my office with shoulder pain, with low back pain, with neck pain. Of course.

They also walk in with flawed neural patterning that began years and years ago, when something happend in their lives that they couldn’t integrate.

Maybe it was abuse. Maybe it was sorrow, disappointment, or the terrible realization that life is not what they thougth is should be.

If we are lucky…

If they are lucky, their imbalance expresses itself in pain, and they find the right help.

The pain is a cry for help. It is a sign that your neural system is not firing properly, that there is improper feed to your body due to a buildup of stress.

Chiropractic helps you repattern your body and mind so that our bodies AND our minds are more flexible, more adaptable, more able to heal properly.

But sometimes healing hurts.

Many times, we think that if our pain goes away, we are healed, and that the goal of their chiropractic care is to go back to our desperate lives, pain free at least.

But they sometimes find something else. They sometimes hurt more after an adjustment.

Awareness brings consequences.  As we heal, as our brains reconnect with our bodies, we can sometimes become aware that there is a bigger problem than the pain.

Awareness also brings us choices.

We now have a chance to face life full on, with awareness of the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful.

Many cannot stomach this awareness right away, and blame everyone and everything for the way they respond to their inner and outer environment.

We must be patient with ourselves and others during this healing process.  While we must ultimately take responsibility for our choices, while we are subluxated (i.e., in a state of less light, less awareness, inflexibilty, inadaptability, holding nerve system interference), we often cannot make the right choices right away.

While we are subluxated, our ability to access our full capacity is still limited.

We must be gentle with ourselves while healing

We musn’t be hard on ourselves during the healing process, just as we musn’t be unduly harsh to others during this time.

It’s the people who are “painless,” who are disconnected from their bodies, yet who have a sense of dis-ease and dissatisfaction with their lives who are often the most dangerous to themselves and those around them.

Pain as a blessing

People who have pain symptoms at least have the blessings of awareness.  There is a chance at reorganizing their patterning. But this patterning happened over a lifetime. We must have faith in the process and give ourselves the love we need to heal.

It also gives us the chance to grow in ways that we would never have been aware of without the pain.

We need inner connection desperately. That’s what chiropractic offers us.

The state of the profession

Chiropractic has earned the dubious reputation as a pain-reducing modality.

That’s because, sometimes healing reduces pain, and it looks like chiropractic is doing that.

It is actually you that is doing that.

Chiropractic is just helping your nervous system reorganize so that you can do that.

Early on, on a professional level, we lost our way.

Without going into too much history, almost form the beginning, we had egoistic infighting.

We lost faith in one another

Because we lost faith in one another, we allowed our environment — in this case, other health professionals and insurance companies — to define us.

Because of this, many of us, myself included, were and are confused as to the true benefits of what we deliver.

That’s why our messaging is often so confusing.

We are still subluxated as a profession.

Yet, with each adjustment to our profession, with each voice within us communicating the truth, we gain strength in the system that is chiropractic.

When we understand the power of the chirorpactic adjustment, when we start to have faith that we are helping facilitate healing on a profound level, we are better able to communicate with others the real promise of chiropractic.

When we do this, others respond with the innate wisdom that they need this.

The state of the world

On the supermacro level, our planet is crying out in pain. Animals are crying out in pain. Plants, rivers, mountains, are crying out in pain.

Our planet is responding like a body in a dis-ease state.  She’s running a temperature. She is raising her immune system defenses (methane, ancient microbes, new, complex viruses) in order to destroy a pathogen that threatens all her life systems.

In this case, the pathogen is a cancer, a set of cells that is in runaway expansion, that is aggresively and recklessly using up all of the resources that she has evolved over the millenia  that sustain life for the whole.

Guess what — or who — that pathogen is?

The state of humanity

Humanity is crying out in pain. We are cruel with one another and with ourselves. We are in denial of our sickness, and lash out angrily when confronted.

However, thankfully, we are finally waking to the realization of what we are doing, and how we can can repair the damage to ourselves and our posterity.

There is no more time to not know what chiropractic can do for us.  We have to get in front of this crisis now.

Chiropractic is crucial to this process

Chiropractic care is essential to this process of healing.

We have to heal ourselves now so that we have the inner capacity to heal our planetary home.

We have to face who we are, what we are, and our power now.  We have to wield our power wisely now.

Wisdom — healing — sometimes hurts. The pain is sometimes a necessary aspect of our evolution.

Chiropractic is an essential tool for speeding up this healing process, and helping us evolve into the creatures that we need to be in order to fix this hell that we have collectively created.

What ever happened to Aunt Rita?

You know, I never really knew my Aunt Rita well. She lived hundreds of kilometers away from me. I only ever saw her on summer holidays or at weddings.

But my Aunt Rita lived a life of service, one in which she cared for hundreds of children nad families in the school systems and churches of Garden City. She touched many lives whom I only know from witnessing the staggeringly long line of mourners that wrapped around the block of the school gymnasium in which her wake was held.

Aunt Rita died of skin cancer in 1998.

She she didn’t know she had it until pain got in the way of her service. By the time she felt pain, it was already too late for conventional medicine to help her.

In the absence of pain we must be vigilant

Maybe if chiropractic care played an additional role in her life, she would still be here today to serve.

It’s a question that is academic at this point; however, knowning what I know now, I have a pretty good idea that she would.

Now you know like I know

But I didn’t yet know that each chiropractic adjustment builds on the last to help the brain reorganize its patterning in order to give the mind and body the energy and resources to heal and evolve.

But now I do. And you do, too.

Spread the word, the love, and get checked and adjusted. Today.

 

 

 

 

Bring Your Voice to Life

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Your voice is strong.  Bring your voice to life.

I believe there is a place for your passion in this world.

If you think that others have already paved the way, and that your voice doesn’t matter…

LOOK AROUND

For every aspiring healer in the world, be they chiropractor, medical doctor, spiritual director, energy healer, yoga instructor, financial advisor, teacher, space organizer, nutritionist…you get my drift…

…there are THOUSANDS of people just like you who are trying to do the same thing – heal the world – and, despite the many voices speaking words of encouragement and love,

THEY DO NOT HEAR THEM.

It’s because they are waiting for you to deliver your voice – your point of view — to the healing conversation.

It is very easy to get overwhelmed by what is happening around us.  Hate, destruction, manipulation, and greed often seem to have won the spirit of humanity, to have stripped us of all reason and compassion.

IT. IS. NOT. TRUE.

You hold the key to our freedom.

We all do. We each have a key, unique and personal to our nature.

The world needs you to use your key.

IF ALL YOU SEE IS DARKNESS

If you feel like you are fumbling in the darkness, desperately searching to unlock the door to your successful entry into the world of world health and healing,

GET STILL.

Turn off the news.

Turn away from the noise around you and turn inward.

If only for ten minutes a day, listen only to your breath and the sound of your heartbeat.

MAKE YOURSELF AVAILABLE FOR ANSWERS.

When we feel that overwhelm, that’s what we project into the void.

Overwhelm is  not what we want to bring to the world, is it?

I know you want to bring love and healing.

We all do.  And, we all want that for ourselves.

One law of nature that is true, that sees itself realized over and over…

YOU GET WHAT YOU GIVE OUT.

It’s not a new message, but one that bears repeating.  Over, and over, with many words from many different mouths.

The gifts of love, gratefulness, compassion, and forgiveness know no equal at any time. Like the many faces of Divine Light that we wear, our gifts of love are unique for each and every one of us.

Remember: there are billions of people in the world, with billions of points of view.

We all need your voice of love.  We all need your light.

Even if you think your voice is small now, exercise it.

Massage it.

Bring it to life.

Bring it to LIFE.

I love you. I believe in you.

A Lesson For Us All

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The following story illustrates one of two huge reasons why it’s hard to change our eating habits:

  • We talk ourselves into believing we are addicted to them.
  • We actually are physically addicted to them.

In this blog post, I am going to address #1.  I’ll address #2 in a future blog post.

Food is an easy comfort.

All we do is reach for it and consume it.

Food becomes a reward we give ourselves for putting up with, and making it through, yet another dissatisfying day.

it’s the same attachment that some of us have with alcohol and drugs.

To ask ourselves to give up our eating habits is asking us to give up the one pleasure that we allow ourselves.

We are so attached to that addiction that we actually tell ourselves that our eating habit is our choice, and we actually embrace the addiction.

We submit.

We succumb.

We release the struggle for a better way, and we accept — for better and for worse — the way we have.

I want to tell you a story.

It is a terrible story.

Last week, a man I know lost his girlfriend to heart disease.

She was not obese. She was not “obviously” ill.

She was relatively young, she was financially successful, and she died — shockingly and instantly — in her lover’s arms.

Let me fill in the details.

I’m going to change the names.  We’ll call him Paul.  We’ll call her  Joyce.

Paul is 43 years old. He is an acquaintance.

He is in the “acquaintance” camp because he’s kind of unbearable.

He’s judgmental. He makes ugly jokes that are designed to hurt, then he says he didn’t mean anything by it.

He’s sneaky. If he can get away with manipulating a situation to his benefit, he will.

He talks about people behind their back, and then when that person is in front of him, he will shower that person with praise.

We all have our stories…

He has a story about that. He suffered abuse at the hands of an ex-spouse, who took everything – his money, his child, his dignity – and moved to another state.

Since then, he’s become a bit unbearable.

Don’t get me wrong. I am sympathetic.  However, that doesn’t mean that I am willing to suffer his abuse.

So I don’t.

About two years ago, Paul re-met an old lover of his from his college years, Joyce.

Joyce had her own story.

She was smart – too smart for her life choices.

She had once worked as an editor for her local newspaper. The newspaper was purchased and went in a direction in which she didn’t agree, so she moved on.

Eventually, she got a job that paid very well but was extremely unrewarding.  She was the director of a bunch of managers at a company whose mission she disagreed with.

She made a lot of money but was never satisfied with her life.

She had had long-term lovers but never married. She was sensitive about what people thought about her, but she didn’t hesitate to tell others what she thought they were doing wrong with their lives.

If you tried to engage her in discussion, she accused you of being insulting. If you tried to respond to one of her criticisms, she told you that you were being defensive.

Joyce and Paul had one thing in common.  Food.

They each had allergies. He has allergies to dairy and wheat. She had allergies to nuts and legumes.  For their allergies, they listened to their respective doctors and were on a great deal of many different drugs.

They also both hated vegetables and they both loved sugar.

So, they spent a great deal of their time and energy together searching for and sharing sugary, starchy foods that met their allergic profiles. When they ate meat, it was processed meat, as cheap as they could find.

That’s actually quite a niche, isn’t it? That’s not easy – finding sugary, starchy foods that are dairy free, wheat free, nut free, and legume free, while at the same time avoiding fresh vegetables. That takes effort!

Neither smoked; that’s one good thing.

However, neither exercised. They didn’t even like to walk around the neighborhood. They drove to the corner store.

They complained of this ache and that ache, of this or that trip to the doctor.

They complained that the doctor could never “find anything,” and would take the pain killers that were prescribed.

But, whenever I tried to tentatively suggest natural, lifestyle changes in answer to Paul’s complaints, he would chuckle at me and say, “I know that’s what you do for a living, but I don’t want to be bothered; and sorry, but I just don’t believe in that stuff.”

So, we didn’t see much of Paul after he started dating Joyce.  When they were together at a party or a function, we chatted politely for a few minutes and moved on.

On the few times we saw Paul when they weren’t together, Paul would grumble about Joyce.

He would complain and tell unflattering stories about her habits.  Afterward, he would declare, “Well, it doesn’t matter. She’s as good as I’m getting. But I’m sure as hell never getting married again. She can forget that!”

It is difficult being close to people like that. It is not emotionally rewarding.

Time went on.

I haven’t seen Paul – or Joyce – for the better part of a year.

Last week, it was reported to me that Paul and Joyce were in the kitchen, putting together a meal.  According to Paul, they were having an argument. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” he reported. “We were just pecking at each other, you know,” when she stopped short and grabbed her chest.

He ran to her and caught her in his arms, just as she was falling.  They both tumbled to the floor.

She died in his arms.

She was 42.

Friends say that Paul is a wreck right now.

The last thing I understand he said to a group of people he visited was, “I wasn’t very nice to her. I wish I had treated her better.”

Was it her eating habits that killed her?

Given that she had seen doctors on multiple occasions to get evaluated for “serious diseases,” I could guess yes.

But I would hazard a more nuanced guess that her eating habits were only part of the story.

You see, food habits, like any habit that hurts us, are symptoms of bigger problems.

Those problems are inside.  They require self-reflection and a willingness to see oneself honestly.

So, the way we relate to food is often a reflection of the way we feel about the way we live.

You never know when the result of a life not-well-lived it’s going to happen.  But in retrospect, you can always say that you saw it coming.

You never know when you’re going to die, but you can often have a direct influence on its length and quality by intentionally living well.

I am 51.  These things are becoming very clear to me in my own life.

As Claire Fitzpatrick, private citizen, I have been to too many funerals of forty- and fifty-something friends and acquaintances to not notice these patterns.

As a chiropractor and nutritionist

I have seen people turn themselves around.

It is the most gratifying thing in the world to know that I have been a small part of their successes.

However, when I have a patient in my office who wants something I don’t offer – a “quick fix” – someone I can’t reach, someone who is a lot like Paul or Joyce, I shake my head and sadly move on.

I can’t help anyone who doesn’t really want help.

I can’t “walk the walk” for them.

Sometimes, the patient isn’t like Paul or Joyce.

Sometimes, the patient is someone who lives with, and takes abuse from, people like Paul and Joyce — someone who has no kind, loving support.

Sometimes, the patient is sweet, giving, lovely, shy, and lonely. Food is their intimate friend.

Sometimes, the patient is sad, depressed, anxious, and suspicious; someone who want to believe in themselves but ultimately sabotages themselves with excessive food (and, very often, with drink).

Sometimes, they want something better for themselves, but they don’t try.

Or, when they do try, when it becomes emotionally difficult to sustain the effort (as it always does), they lack the will to continue and they quit.

These are the cases that break my heart.

I have all kinds of tools to give. I can show how to use them.

For instance, as of this writing, I am hosting a 28-Day Rapid Reset Challenge (click here for details).

But ultimately, any tool I offer will fail if it is not used.

 

I’m not a psychologist.

I am a chiropractor.  I’m sort of a “neuropsychologist” for the body.

However, I do work with psychologists, and I recommend them often. We tend to see a lot of the same people.

You know, I have seen this over and over: Physical pain is worse when we have emotional pain.

Pain — physical and emotional — is frightening and isolating, and so it often becomes part of one’s self-identity.

Physical discomfort is easier to manage and eliminate if one has faith in oneself.

I wish I could reach into your heart and fill you with self-love and belief.

We walk beside you as you heal; but ultimately, we all walk the inner road by ourselves.

The best I can do is be here, continue to tell you how much I believe in you; and that, when you’re ready, I am honored to help.

Try to Speak Their Language

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This morning, I visited a business networking group in a suburb of Amsterdam called Amstelveen.

First of all, I was late.  I was so late.

The Dutch, like New Yorkers, are very prompt.  They pride themselves on three things: orderliness, cleanliness, and timeliness.

I have cleanliness down.

Orderliness and timeliness are challenges for me.

When You’re Too Excited…

Last evening, knowing I needed to get up about 5:30, I went to bed at 9:30 and promptly laid awake for 45 minutes.

Then I woke at 2 in the morning; at 2:45, I decided it was time to meditate (I have free meditations here).

I dropped back off to sleep at about 4.

So guess where I was in my sleep cycle at 5:30?

R.E.M.

I’m talking deep, R.E.M., “you-ain’t-waking-me-for-a-fire,” kind of sleep.

After three “snoozes” and an inner, semi-conscious grapple that lasted 25 minutes, I finally dragged myself to the bathroom at 6:15.

The meeting was at 7:00 a.m.  In the email, they had advised that I really should be there at 6:45.

The trip from home-to-meeting, if I made the train, was 33 minutes.

Uh, Yeah…

I’m good, but I still can’t bend time as well as I’d like. Still, against all odds, I ended up arriving at 7:20, after everyone had already sat down and began networking.

In Dutch.

“Spreekt Jij Engels?”

I’ve been studying it for over a year now; and still, I only have a toddler’s grasp of Dutch.

I blew into the room and I knew enough to say, “Het spijt me; ik te laat (I’m sorry, I too late), before I found my seat…

…a spot in the middle of the room where a nice little printed table tent, a plastic container full of member business cards, where a little advice note on meeting etiquette – in Dutch — lay waiting patiently for me to arrive.

The president of the meeting introduced me in Dutch as I hurried to my seat. I heard my name, “chiropractie,” “New York,” and “wonen te Amsterdam laast maand” before the fellow gave me a break and asked me, “Is that right?” in English.

“Yes.  Ja. Yes,” I stammered as I navigated my big back pack, my handful of keys (remember my legendary set of keys in New York? Somehow, I’ve managed to collect a set of 20 keys for the locks in the city of Amsterdam), and my jacket around my seat.

The room of 50 business people then proceeded to conduct the whole meeting in adult – not toddler – Dutch.

“I’m an Amrrr-ican.”

Look. I know the reputation that people from the United States have.  English is the primary language, and although we have the opportunity to learn other languages in school, it is not mandatory. So it is rare that an American will speak other languages fluently.

I’m guilty.  I know just enough Spanish, French, German and Dutch to say “beer” in German, to order it in French, using Dutch pronouns, and adding, “por favor,” at the end.

Not So In Europe — And Everywhere Else

In the Netherlands, English is a mandatory language. Particularly in Amsterdam, everyone speaks English to at least a seventh-grade level of understanding.

So, I knew going in that everyone in the room would understand me if I spoke English.

But I also know that we, in the United States, have a bit of a reputation of not bothering to learn another countries’ culture and language.

There’s good reason for that.  I forget the exact number — 20 or 30 percent — but very few people from the United States ever visit a foreign country.  So, when are we going to use another language?

That is changing, however, as more and more people from different countries emigrate to the United States, and do business with U.S. over the Internet.

The World is Getting Smaller

I remember a networking group to which I was a part in Connecticut.  There was a woman from Ecuador – I’ll call her Lisa – who probably knew as much English as I know Dutch now.  She was a member of our group.

Lisa’s native tongue is Spanish; yet spoke nothing but English every single meeting.

She struggled and apologized and struggled some more to get her message across in English.  This is back when Google Translate was not even a thought in a developer’s head.

Everyone loved her for it.

Ten years later, she is still a member of that same group, and doing very well for herself.

Toddler Dutch

Like I said; my Dutch is kiddie Dutch. And I have Google Translate.

I thought of Lisa.

When it came time for me to stand up and introduce myself, I typed my speech into Google Translate on my phone, and I proceeded to read my speech in probably the worst Dutch pronunciation this group has ever heard.

I got an ovation.  When I gave an exit testimonial about how much I appreciated their hospitality – again, in Dutch – I got another ovation.

I also got an invitation to come back to the meeting, a few one-on-one appointments with members to get to know one anothers’ businesses, and a man who is fears the “cracking” sound that chiropractic sometimes makes who would like to try my services.

Not bad for a few minute’s effort.

Try To Speak Their Language

The Dutch are also very honest, straight-forward people.

More than one person said I was “very brave” to stand and speak to this room in Dutch; that other English speakers just “walk right in,” and “proceed to do everything in English.”

I don’t know if what they meant was that I was “brave.” I think what they were saying is that it was very considerate of me to try to speak to a group of people in their language, a language which I clearly have no mastery.

I learned a long time ago that, whatever way I perceive a situation, someone else perceives it a different way.

“Fix it, Doc!”

Most people come to a chiropractor because they are in pain, they can’t get out of it, and someone told them a chiropractor might help them.

That’s all they know. They want to get out of pain.  That’s why I first went to a chiropractor, too.

I’m now on the other end of that spectrum. I went through the physics, the chemistry, the organic chemistry, the biomechanics. I went through the neurology, the anatomy, the kinesiology, the art, science, and the philosophy of chiropractic.

Chiropractic now means something very different to me than to the average person on the street.

Bringing the Mountain to The People?

I once thought it was my job to bring people from “get out of pain” to “the sole purpose of chiropractic is to reunite man the physical with man the spiritual,” during the first visit.

At first, I had a lot of trouble recruiting patients to my practice.  People ended up going to “the pain guy” – whoever it was — down the street.

People don’t speak that language right away.  They may never learn that language.  You have to walk with them along their road before you point down the path of yours and begin to explain its twists and turns.

If they are called to “the mountain,” like me, they will have to make the effort to learn the language.

That takes time.  I was a chiropractic patient for fifteen years before I went to school as a chiropractor, and I didn’t speak the language when I went in.  It took me time to learn that language as well.

What Language Do You Have to Learn?

Do you need to learn how to speak your partner’s language? Your boss? Your child’s?  Whose perspective are you so bent upon converting to your own, that you are forgetting how to listen to them?

Find out where people are. Take the time to understand the language they are using when they speak to you about their struggles at work, school, on the playground, in the internet world, at home.

Meet Them Where They Are.

I once saw a chiropractor spend the entire first visit with a patient in his crowded waiting room, because it took all the effort in the world for that patient to even make it through his front door, let alone the examination room.  He examined and adjusted the patient right there, and got him to a place where he could walk around a few feet without excruciating pain in his back and legs, all in front of his other patients.

This doc is one of the most philosophical, spiritual chiropractors I have ever met. I barely understand what the hell he’s talking about when he speaks about the nature of chiropractic to a roomful of other doctors of chiropractic.  He’s way out there in the stratosphere, when it comes to chiropractic neurology and philosophy.

Notice, I said he had a crowded waiting room.

His Patients Know He Cares For Them

His patients, at first, don’t know that, when he finds the problem and addresses it, that he’s opening communication between their central nervous system and the rest of their body, that he’s clearing interference so that the body is able to heal itself more efficiently, and that, in his mind, he’s tapping into the forces of divine creation of which Rumi and Hafiz wrote about with such eloquence.

He first meets them where they are…in his waiting room, scared and in pain, hoping that somehow this guy can fix it.

Nothing brings that home than to try and explain chiropractic care in another language to a group of strangers who aren’t even looking for help.

In every ministry – be it parental, political, spiritual, intellectual, financial, legal, whatever…there is no way that we are able to deliver the message of health and healing if we don’t figure out what the person believes is wrong with them.

Faster Horses? Or A Better Way?

You know that famous quote about Henry Ford who said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

At least he knew their desire.  He knew the meta-message behind that request: that they wanted a better, faster, easier way to get from here to there, and they didn’t know how to go about it.

You know how to go about it.  But people don’t know need to know the method behind your genius.  They just want to know that you hear them, that you care, and that you will do everything you can to eliminate their trouble.

They Really Just Want to Know That You Care

And they want to know when you can’t. They want to know that, even if you can’t, you care about them.

And that’s the real meta-message. People want to know you care about them.

You do that by meeting people where they are, and trying to speak with the language they understand.

They don’t even need you to be fluent in their perception. They just need to know you’re trying.

Because, you really do care, don’t you?

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!