Relationships

In the book "The 12 Stages of Healing", Donald Epstein, DC describes how we go through each of these stages on our healing path. The first stage is Suffering, and the second stage is Polarities. In the second stage we have gained enough flexibility to seek help in alleviating our suffering, but we also see ourselves as victims of what created the suffering in the first place. Many things may cause suffering such as viruses, being fired from a job, and relationships, to give a couple of examples. The problem with this is that the cause of the suffering always comes from the outside, it is never our fault, it is what happens to us.

Relationships can be a huge cause of suffering. One may get into a relationship that turns sour after a while, and hearts become broken. It is easy to blame the other person for causing the suffering: "He lied all the time", "She cheated on me!", "This person was abusive", and so on. We mend our hearts, and develop another relationship, and the scenario repeats itself. Many people go through this cycle time and again, then lament on why they can't find a decent guy/girl.

As one moves through the second stage, healing occurs when the sufferer stands back, takes a look at the choices that have been made, and realizes that maybe they are involved in how these relationships unfold. They may begin to see that there is a common thread in the people that have been chosen in the relationship and that they keep playing the same scenario over and over, just with different people. At this point, one becomes more whole. The healing comes with the realization that they are not the victim of a continuous stream of whack jobs, but rather they have been involves somehow in the person that they have dated. The same can be said for jobs that continue to fail too, but we will stick to relationships in today's column.

G is a young woman who did not have a healthy relationship with her mother while growing up, and related to me that at one point her mother tried to strangle her. Consequently G continues to hold a great deal of tension in her neck and shoulder area of the upper chest. The nerve system will take the stress of an event and store it in the tissues of the body when it senses that the stress is too much to deal with. The muscles contract and create a 'suit of armor' if you will, to protect us. G and I have made great strides in releasing this tension through her spinal entrainments..

At one point, G dropped out of care for a few months due to personal reasons, but had informed me of having started a relationship with someone at the just before taking a hiatus from care. Last week G returned, and presented with a great deal of neck tension again. G related that the relationship was toxic and had come to an end, and that the person had been a lot like her mother.

For some reason, we tend to gravitate towards the same type of person or situation that creates our suffering, over and over again. Because of this, when the situation turns bad, as it inevitably will, our nerve systems respond the same way as it always has to that circumstance. In this case it is neck stiffness and pain. It could just as easily have been low back pain, or asthma, or any other medical condition. We may see that the people appear to be different, but the nerve system sees them as all the same and responds the same way in its protective mode creating the same scenario in us.

When we have the realization that G had, that they are involved in the choices that have been made, then we can break free of the grip we have placed upon ourselves and move on to healthier choices leaving our suffering behind.

Until next time....

Perceptions

It's funny how people accept that whatever condition they have, they are stuck with it because someone of authority said so. Last friday, Sept 11, D was in for her regular visit. After I clear the nerve system, I like to check for weaknesses in areas of people's discomfort. D has been telling me that her shoulders hurt and feel weak, so I tested them by having her raise her arms away from her sides. Then I pressed down and asked her to resist. She said, "Oh I can't do that, I had surgery on the left and it hurts". She did have trouble resisting, that is, her arms were weak. I lowered her arms and then just put my hands on her shoulders, and imagined them being strong again. I said "Let's test that again". I raised her arms, she made a face as if to say, "Oh it's going to hurt!" I pressed on her arms and they were solidly strong! She looked up in amazement. She said "What did you do?" I told her that I just changed her perception of herself. She came in today and I retested her arms, and they were still strong. I lowered the left one to another angle and she tested weak. I did same thing, and again it was strong. Overall, her arms are stronger, and as she left she announced as she walked down the hall, "I feel so much better!"

D's perception was that since she had surgery, that her left arm was her bad arm and that she will have to live with the cards she was dealt. It's not necessarily so. That is just one perception, and perceptions can change just in the way we look at things. I changed her perception, and her body gave a healthier response.

If we can realize that our bodies are dynamic energy units in a constant state of flux, and not biological machines, then any change in health is possible. In a quantum world, the universe organizes itself based upon the observer. If we expect to "see" things one way, the Universe collapses itself into that reality. If we change our perception, the Universe will collapse into the new reality. Reality is only a hallucination based upon the way we look at things. Modern Medicine tells people that if it has no answers for people then they have to live with whatever it is they have, or die from it. That is just one perception. In a quantum world, no one has to live with anything because we can change that perception, and therefore our experience of ourselves. And that is what makes it all so cool!

Until next time....

A New Start

Yesterday, Pam and I went to see Julie and Julia. If you haven't seen it, it's about a girl in New York who creates a challenge for herself to make every recipe in Julia Child's book in one year. That's over 500 recipes. At the end of each day, she blogs her experiences and thoughts about what she had done. At first no one was reading her blogs but her mother, but eventually she developed a following. Her blogs became very popular, turned into a book, and eventually the movie we saw yesterday. I really enjoyed the movie, and it got me thinking...I have this blog but I haven't been very diligent about using it. I also thought that I could do what she did and share my thoughts about my working day. I deal with people's health, there is plenty of interest in that. I don't know if anyone will read this, but who knows....it worked for Julie! So, let's see where this goes....

Most people tend to think of chiropractic as a health discipline dealing with sprains and strains. Unfortunately so do most chiropractors because, essentially that is what they are teaching the students these days.

The original "Big Idea" is that chiropractic is a total health approach to the body. The purpose of adjusting the spine is not to free up stuck vertebra, but to restore health to a sick nerve system, specifically the spinal cord. The nerve system creates the body, a healthy nerve system creates a healthy body, a sick one creates a sick body. It's as simple as that. So when people come to my office because of real health issues, not just a back pain or headache, it gets me really excited!

I had a consultation today with T (I will never use people's names in this column to protect their privacy) today because he has stage 4 lung cancer. He knows the body can heal itself, but he needs direction. He doesn't want chemotherapy, which is the only method traditional medicine has to offer, because he knows that it just will make him sicker. He came to me. (Please note, that I did not and will not advise him to quit chemotherapy or interfere with his medical care. But we will work on detoxing his system with my methods and clearing his nerve system of interference to give his body the best chance to heal). We'll start in two days, and there will be more about T in future posts.

One mother brought her son in because he was up all night coughing. Another young girl, 15 came in because she hasn't had her period in two months (no, she isn't!).

This is what health care is about. It's not about being someones walking aspirin, but more like being their facilitator and coach. It's about helping them overcome health issues by utilizing their own body's wisdom - seeing where they are stuck and guiding them through it, then allowing them to heal in what ever way that is. Just how cool is that!

Until next time...

Thoughts on the Health Care "Crisis" and Obama's push for payment reform.

As everyone knows the President is pushing for a comprehensive program to overhaul how health care is paid for and to make sure everyone is adequately covered. Unfortunately, the solutions that he is advocating are going to cause an increase in spending by upwards of $2 trillion. This is only going to fuel inflation, further hurt our weak economy, and actually make it harder for people to get the care they desire.
Part of the problem is that health insurance has changed over the years. Insurance is meant to help people pay for catastrophes that may occur. That’s what your car insurance is for. You only use it if you are in an accident. Health insurance should be used only for catastrophes, such as accidents and hospitalizations. But it has developed into a service to pay for all aspects of health – the doctor visits. This would be the same as using your car insurance to pay for gas and oil changes. We think car insurance is expensive now, can you imagine what it would be like if it paid for the everyday things too? Well that’s what has happened to health insurance. People expect it to pay for everything, and now the government agrees. And it is going to cost.
That being said, since we are in the model of insurance paying for everything, let’s look at some of the costs. The cost of health care, from hospital to doctor bills, drugs, medical equipment, insurance, nursing homes, and home health care, doubled from 1994 to 2004. In 2004, the country spent $140 billion dollars more on health care than we did the year before. Overall, the tab for health care spending in this country is $1.8 trillion a year, which is four times the amount spent on national defense. 15% of America’s Gross Domestic Product is spent on medical care which amounts to $6289 per person every year! Is it any wonder that they are calling for some kind of change?
But let’s understand something. This is not money spent on “health care”. This is money spent on Disease Care. The cost of keeping people healthy is negligible, because healthy people do not need hospitals, prescriptions, medical equipment, nursing homes, or home health care. Sick people do, and it is the cost of treating illnesses that is skyrocketing the bill. So far, in all the discussions on Capitol Hill, not one mention has been made about lifestyle. It is all about how to pay for treating all the ill people. If people took more responsibility for their health, wouldn’t that make the costs go down?
Some illnesses are inevitable. But there is a lot the people can do to help themselves to avoid illness, because the two leading causes of illness in this country are smoking and obesity.
It is no secret that smoking tobacco causes heart disease; lung disease and cancer; cancer of the mouth and throat; cancer of the pancreas; and cancer of the intestinal tract. Yes, some people can live a full life of smoking without getting these illnesses, but they are the exception, not the rule. If you smoke, you will get ill. Cardiac disease costs the US more than $400 billion a year in medical expenses and lost productivity, and is responsible for almost six million hospitalizations each year! If the cost of treating cardiac disease is added into all the goods and services that we spend our money on, it is costing each family of four, $460 a month!
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the US today. In 2004, more than half a million people died of cancer, which amounts to about 1500 people every day! It is estimated that tobacco use is responsible for more than 170,000 cancer deaths alone. In 2004, cancer cost this country $60.9 billion in direct medical costs and $135 billion in indirect costs due to illness for a total of almost $200 billion! How much is this costing you? Every person in this country has to contribute $719 each year, or $240 a month for a family of four. So far our little family of four is spending $700 a month to treat cancer and heart disease. That could pay most mortgages.
Obesity has also become a major problem in this country. Obesity rates have increased by more than 60% among adults in the last 10 years and will soon overtake smoking as the leading cause of preventable death. Since 1980, obesity rates have doubled among young children, and tripled among adolescents. Obesity is a contributor to many chronic diseases including Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, breast cancer, colon cancer, gallbladder disease, and arthritis. The yearly bill for treating these conditions is $98 billion for Type 2 diabetes, $8.8 billion for heart disease, $5.3 billion for arthritis, $3.2 billion for gallbladder disease, $1.3 billion for colon cancer, and $1.1 billion for breast cancer. Overall, the total health bill for treating these diseases and others related to obesity not mentioned here is about $137 billion. This costs a family of four $1027 a year, or another $86 a month.
If we add up the costs of treating the health effects of smoking and obesity, our tab comes to more than $700 billion a year! Is it any wonder that it is becoming more and more difficult to pay for illness care?
The problem is that smoking is a choice. And most of the time, not always, obesity is too. If people want to have affordable health care, they have to stop doing things that make themselves sick and then expect the Doctor to fix them. If more people were to adopt healthy lifestyles, the need for this expensive system would go down, as would the costs. As I mentioned before, healthy people do not need hospitals, prescriptions, medical equipment, nursing homes, or home health care.
The government can’t fix this. Anything they get their hands on costs more. Before Medicare and Medicaid, everyone could afford their health care, no one went without. But now those programs, as well as the corporate take-over of health care in the form of PPO’s and HMO’s have served to drive up costs. Combine that with the unhealthy choices people make, and here we are. What we can do is adopt healthy choices. I know I am preaching to the choir here, but share this information with everyone you know. There is something we can do as individuals – opt out of the system, be healthy!

MIchael Jackson's Death

There is an article on Yahoo today, Sunday, June 28, that says that Michael Jackson's death is bringing a spotlight onto sudden cardiac arrest. The article quotes a cardiologist from the Cleveland Clinic who says that this malady claims anywhere from 200,000 to 300,000 lives a year. This is sad because what Jackson's death should bring attention to is drug abuse. Michael Jackson was on several prescribed drugs including Paxil, Zoloft, Soma, and Demerol. Demerol is a morphine like substance that in itself causes cardiac arrest, and he had had a shot of demerol less than one hour before he died. Soma is a "muscle relaxant" whose use is contra-indicated with opiates, of which demerol is one. On top of this, he was underweight and malnourished. Michael Jackson was a ticking time bomb that exploded on June 25.

Prescription drugs are one of the leading causes of death in the US today, and the leading cause of hospitalization. When will the medical profession wake up to the fact that their procedures kill people? The article on Yahoo which came from Healthday Reporter never mention the drugs he was on. Like smoke being the result of fire, in this case sudden cardiac arrest is the smoke from the fire of Jackson's drug abuse - prescribed by physicians! Instead of drawing attention to the smoke, let's look at the fire - drug abuse. It killed Elvis, Anna Nicole Smith, countless others, and now Micheal Jackson. Let's tell the truth, Michael Jackson's death is criminal, not an accident of something inherently wrong with his heart.

What Can You Afford?

Economic times are tough, there is no denying that. I have been hearing from some people lately that they need to cut back on their care or, worse yet, stop coming, because they can’t “afford” it right now. But what this really means is that they are going to rely on the traditional medical system for their “health care” because that is what they pay insurance premiums for and what insurance will cover. This is a Fool’s Paradise.
The American Medical System is not designed to keep people healthy; it is only designed to keep you not sick. There is a difference between the two. Health is a state of Wholeness and Well-being. It is a state where all your systems, and you, are functioning 100% of the time all of the time. A state of Health is defined by a high quality of life, not the presence or absence of symptoms. There is nothing that the medical world can offer that will provide that.
Medicine developed a model of disease. All its treatments are based upon a negative model. They are all “anti”: antidepressants, antipsychotics, antibiotics, antihistamines, and so on. Their language is one of warfare: The war on cancer, the war on drugs, we have to fight this or that illness, we will give you a “battery” of drugs. The body has become a battle ground, and you are the casualty.
They only offer three things: Drugs that poison you, surgery that rapes you of your organs, and radiation that burns your body and rips apart your DNA. Modern medicine is the leading cause of preventable death in the US today killing the same amount of people who died in the World Trade Center on September 11, EVERY WEEK!!! Tell me; where is the health in this and why do you pay for it?
The key to health is not to avoid disease, but to maintain the integrity of your body. This is the Chiropractic approach. Most people know that good nutrition and exercise are important. But what good is all that if the controlling system of the body is sick? The sole purpose of the chiropractic adjustment is to maintain the health and integrity of your nerve system – the system that controls your body and very life.
Your nerve system coordinates body movement, unless it is sick. Your nerve system coordinates your heart beat and breath, unless it is sick. Your nerve system regulates the thousands of reactions that your cells undergo, unless it is sick. Your nerve system IS your immune system and protects you from infection, unless it is sick. Your nerve system coordinates all the healing and repair of your body, unless it is sick. When your nerve system becomes sick, you become sick.
And what makes the nerve system sick? Stress! And everyone has some level of stress in their lives. Stress distorts the spinal cord, the connecting link between the brain and the rest of you. Only, and I mean only, the chiropractic adjustment can tune your nerve system to improve mind-body communication, to keep you healthy. Vitamins won’t do it. Prayer won’t do it. Reiki won’t do it. Drugs won’t do it. Exercise won’t do it. The spine has to be adjusted!
For this reason, what we do here is not about treating your diseases, but raising the level of your body’s health so that it does not slowly break down and take you on the road of illness and despair. For the only thing you will find at the end of that road is a Disease care system that will hasten your death. If you are healthy, you don’t need Medicine. Chiropractic care is not a luxury, but a necessity. This is your insurance policy! You are investing in yourself and your future. For people to say they can’t afford it and go with the program that their insurance pays for is ludicrous. If you value your health, you will stay off that road! And, as Forest Gump said, “That’s all I have to say about that.”

Innate Intelligence with Deepak Chopra, MD

This is a short video with Deepak Chopra. The concept of Innate Intelligence has been central to chiropractic philosophy since its inception in 1895. In this video, Dr. Chopra explains Innate beautifully. The nerve system is the heart of Innate, a clear nerve system always produces a healthy body!