The Chiropractor’s Philosophy: The Power That Made the Body Heals the Body

In our modern Health Care System, I think we can all agree that health is defined as the absence of disease, ailment, illness, injury, etc. When you go see a traditional medical doctor, you present with a disease or illness, it’s diagnosed, and it’s considered a success if the illness is removed. Ideally, the quicker the better, which is why prescription medication, potions and lotions, and surgeries are so popular. They’re the quick fix we’re all after. And certainly there is a time and a place for such actions. If you fracture your leg, you certainly wouldn’t want to go visit a chiropractor, would you? But is this definition of health as “the removal of pain or disease” the entire picture? Is this what health truly is?

To use a metaphor for illustration’s sake, please bare with me: peace is typically defined as the absence of war. When there is no war, we say there is now peace. But is peace simply the lack of war? That is, does peace exist solely when there is no war? Or does peace have an intrinsic quality to it, does it have a presence of something more than merely the absence of something? Stay with me because this is important. I experience peace as not being a lack of conflict—it’s not a vacant empty thing, there is also a presence of something more: for example, elements of joy embedded in its nature.

Now this is essential. Is real Health simply the absence of disease? Is Health merely getting rid of something so we can revert back to business as usual: overworking, overeating, underexercising, etc.? Or does true Health have an intrinsic quality to it that gives it the very definition of Health? My answer is yes. Health is not simply the absence of disease. Health contains an element of resiliency. Not merely coping or surviving with life’s challenges, Health is something more: it’s thriving and adapting gracefully in response to life’s challenges. Health has an intrinsic quality of being able to adapt to all the change and stressors that life presents and what is more: to use these stressors as fuel for growth.

Our modern “Health Care” System should actually be called a “Sick-Care System.” Because it focuses on removing sickness and illness, not on the optimally functioning, thriving nature of the human nervous system. Chiropractors, on the other hand, focus on just the opposite…

Your body has an amazing ability to heal itself!

As a chiropractor, I am your guide to help you find your way back to your body and its’ inborn healing ability. I am your guide to help you re-discover true Health, one that has the presence of thriving, rather than a lack of something. Ultimately, you are your own guide, your own sherpa. In the mean time, I am here to help you remember that. And on that note…

We are always upgrading our phone operating systems, on a monthly basis. How often are we upgrading our nervous systems?

The central nervous system has an incredible capacity to oscillate between a survival / fight or flight / sympathetic mode or to a healing / rest and digest / parasympathetic state. It’s normal and healthy for it to move back and forth between these two states. Over time, however, life’s stressors leave traumatic imprints on our nervous system that cause our physiology to lock up in a recognizable pattern. This pattern is like a snapshot in time of a particular defense mechanism we learned and mastered over many years of practice in reacting to stressors. This locked up response is like taking a traumatic event that was too much for our nervous system to process at the time and storing it as an energetic signature or “package” to be dealt with at a later time. At these times of overwhelm, it’s an efficient way for our nervous system to categorize something as an “I’ll deal with this later” item. Another word for this snapshot or locked-up defense, in chiropractic terms, is a “subluxation.” These subluxations are referred to as misalignments in our spine, but really they are the body’s response to traumatic incidents; it’s how our body protects itself, to keep the system from overloading, similar to the way a circuit breaker works in a home’s electrical system. The circuit switch gets flipped to keep the entire system from overloading. The problem is that over time these subluxations accumulate and put stress on your nervous system, specifically on the spinal cord, which is the communication channel between the brain and the rest of the body. With an excess amount of stress on the nervous system and spinal cord, we are essentially operating at a significantly reduced capacity from our full, innate potential. It’s as if we are running Windows ‘95 in the day of Apple iPhones. In other words, as we are updating all the technology around us, how often are we upgrading our own personal operating system? How much value, and how much of a priority are we placing on our own health and nervous systems?

At Summit Family Chiropractic, we pride ourselves on being your guide to connecting you back to your body, releasing chiropractic subluxations, so that your nervous system can operate at it innately-designed optimal capacity.

Because we each have accumulated subluxations and defense postures throughout the course of our lives, if our goal is to have an optimally functioning nervous system, then seeing the chiropractor is not a quick fix or a one-visit resolution. It may temporarily reduce back pain, but if our goal is to truly alter how we respond to life’s stressors and get to the root of the cause of our stress physiology, then seeing a chiropractor is more like seeing a personal trainer. We are literally retraining our nervous systems and how we respond to life. Seeing the chiropractor does not just get rid of pain, it changes the very way we experience our lives.