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How I Approach the Body

Today I am going to give an overview of my approach to the body in my practice. I am a chiropractor and, as a profession, we are most known for our structural work. There are three reasons why you can have a misalignment: structure, chemistry and emotional/energetic. What this means is that maybe your neck hurts because it is out of alignment. But what caused it to be out of alignment? It could be because you fell and hit your neck. Or it can be because you ate a food you are allergic to and the response of the body was a cervical vertebra out of alignment. Or it could be that something triggered an emotional response in you that resulted in a cervical vertebra being out of alignment. No matter what the cause, your neck hurts and you can’t turn it in a normal way.

STRUCTURE
In terms of body structure, just watch people move and you will see just how important structure becomes, especially as we age. I was in a business the other day and saw an elderly man whose steps were about 2 inches long. I turned to Valerie, the massage therapist I share space with, and said, “that is a man who has never had any body work.” You don’t want to be that man!! We will all get old, if we are lucky, so take care of your body. One thing you can do for yourself at home is stretch. It takes only a few minutes. Do it daily and you will experience the difference! Doing it once won’t give you the results you want. The structural patient is what most people consider the typical chiropractic patient to be. Often an adjustment of moving the vertebra in the spine gives relief. If uncomplicated, it is easy to restore proper motion in the patient. It gets more complicated if the problems are combined, meaning the cause is partly structure, partly chemistry and partly emotional/energetic.

CHEMISTRY
The biggest complaint I’ve ever heard about chiropractors is that “they help me, but I have to go back.” Most people don’t expect instantaneous results, but we should make progress. And when we don’t, there is often a chemical component that keeps the structure stirred up. Currently, inflammation is considered the cause for our problems. It is in all the magazines and health related articles. There are products you can take for inflammation like tumeric. That’s fine, but the question should be, what is causing the raging inflammation in our bodies? Sadly, it is often foods that we are allergic or sensitive to, often because the foods are genetically modified or have chemicals on them our body doesn’t like. Or it is because we have subclinical organisms like fungus, bacteria, virus, parasites or heavy metals that burden our body. I treat these with diet and supplements. These patients often come in with problems with their digestive tracts. Their stomach hurts. They don’t feel they digest well. Or, these people can have a pain syndrome that is very stubborn. I use kinesiology to determine the foods they are sensitive to and what supplements they need.

EMOTIONS/ENERGY
The body has energy coursing through it all the time. This is the energy referred to as chi and is referred to in acupuncture. You have probably seen on television or read that the body remembers everything that has ever happened to you. This memory of our experience is in the cells of the body. We used to think that our emotional memories were stored in the brain but, in fact, we now know they are stored everywhere in the body. Our body will remember things that our conscious minds have forgotten. Our body has a physiological reaction to negative emotional experience. So our body wants a resolution to that reaction. I use NET, the Neuro-Emotional Technique to help resolve the physiological response to negative emotional experience. Much of the time we are completely unconscious to this situation. I also suggest people use tapping at home, which is in the book, The Tapping Solution by Nick Ortner. A patient came to me from the airport, not being able to stand up. I treated her for three days in a row without much success. I questioned myself, “what am I missing?” I decided to check to see if emotions were involved. In about five minutes, the patient walked out of my office without pain. How fabulous is that? If this article has left you with a question, please email me and I will try and address it in my next blog! Have a great month!

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