FLOW WITH LIFE - The Answer is in Your Hands

A Time To Review...& Renew

2006-09-15T10:55:00.000-07:00

Well, it's the beginning of a new year. What a great time to look back at the past year and consider...was it a success? Am I healthier, wiser, more functional, and more loving than a year ago? If the answer is yes...congratulations! If the answer is no, I have good news for you. So long as breath moves through us, we can still change the direction of our life.

Even the most conservative estimates regarding the growth of cells in the body report that most cells renew within at least two and a half years. That means that every two and a half years, we build an entirely new body! There is some debate on the regeneration of nerve cells in the body, but new evidence is pointing to the fact that they indeed also renew. If this is so, why do we keep building the same "bad knee", "painful back", "damaged shoulder", etc.?

I am of the opinion that the reason we continue to build as before is because our pattern has not changed. The saying "If you do what you've always done, you will get what you've always gotten", seems to apply. Occasionally a person will ask me, "Why is nothing changing with my (symptom)?" I will usually ask in return, "What are you doing differently?"

If we view the symptom as a signal from our bodies that something needs to change, our next step is to begin a self-inquiry as to what that "something" is. Personally, I have found that the "something" fits into one of three categories:

• mental/emotional
• chemical
• physical

In other words, it is either something I am:

• thinking or feeling
• eating, drinking, breathing or being exposed to
• doing or not doing physically.

Simply by viewing the symptoms as 'attention getters' of 'something needs to change' allows us the opportunity to step back, observe our life, and choose to make a change...or not. In this way, our body is providing a 'road map' to living a healthier, wiser, more functional and more loving life.

Stress & Your Body

2006-09-13T11:34:00.000-07:00

A lot of attention has been given lately to the topic of stress. It's talked about on TV, on the radio, in newspapers and in magazines. Most every health practitioner alive knows about the negative effects of stress on health.

I would like to offer a slightly different perspective on the topic, It is my opinion that stress is not the problem. In fact, it is my opinion that stress is even necessary for life.

Yes, you read it correctly. Stress is the response of the body to any demand. When a demand is placed on the body, a physiologic response is generated which includes:

Increased blood pressure
Increased respiratory rate
Increased oxygen consumption (burning of fuel)
Increased blood flow to skeletal muscles
Increased perspiration
Increased muscle tone
Decreased digestion
This is called the 'fight or flight' response. The safer we feel in a situation, the less the response. The more threatened we feel, the more intense the response. A decision must then be made to meet the challenge (fight) or leave (flight). Shortly after the fight or flight, full recovery of the physiology to a resting state should occur.

Any change in our environment is a potential stressor. Gravity, walking, eating a meal, meeting a new person, even falling in love can be called stressors. Our ability to successfully adapt to the change with a corresponding recovery of our physiology is required for optimum health.

Our inability to successfully adapt or recover from changes in our environment serves to keep all or parts of our physiology in a fight or flight response. This requires large expenditures of energy, depletes our immune system, and puts us on permanent "red alert". Constantly being on red alert causes us to respond to events more and more as if they were life threatening.

Few things in our lives are really life threatening, yet we respond to so many things as if they were . . . deadlines at work, missed appointments, traffic, divorce, financial stress and/or school, to list a few.

With all this said, how do we begin to meet stress in a healthy, life-supporting way? First and foremost, we must allow the body to fully recover from previous stressors that have not been adapted to. flow is specifically designed to assist the body in recovering from previous stressors. The main goal is to allow the body to dissipate stored tension. How long this takes depends on:

the amount of past and current stress in one's life, and
awareness of and respect for one's healing rhythms.
With less tension, we begin to see that we can respond to situations rather that react to them. This means we can choose to increase the fight/flight response or minimize it, merely by changing our perception of the event.

If we can change our perception in a current event, why not change our perception of a past event? No matter how traumatic an event from the past was, we have the ability to rewrite history, change our perception, and make up a new story about it. Why not see it in a light way that makes us whole, healthy and full of life, as opposed to a way that makes us separate, sick and depressed?

In this way, our wounds become gifts through which we serve and love others. Stress then becomes something we welcome into our lives to challenge us to grow in ways we might not have without the stress.

My Mother Abandoned Me - Moving from fear to freedom…

2006-09-12T16:36:00.000-07:00

Dear friend,

In view of the recent terrorist attacks, we all have had the opportunity to look terror right in the face. We have most likely felt the following emotions…shock, fear, grief, anger and confusion. It is very important that we allow these feelings to move through us. This allows us to integrate the information and decide upon an appropriate response, hopefully, a response that is life promoting. Fear can be useful if we choose life and move towards healthy actions. Fear is destructive if we shut down to life and allow it to paralyze us.

The giraffe in this picture lives at Fossil Rim in Glen Rose, Texas. His name is Ichabod. At birth he was abandoned by his mother and raised by humans. I first met Ichabod when he was three months old - the time of this picture. At that time he and all the other giraffes were kept inside an enclosure at night. Each morning the gate was opened and they were free to roam a 450-acre area. Ichabod however would not leave the enclosure. He was too afraid.

Ichabod's fear had begun to be destructive. He was not communing with the other giraffes. He was not grazing the wild food. He was not getting enough exercise. The fear was controlling his life, instead of moving him to action. Upon examination of his spine discovered that Ichabod needed flow. After two or three contacts in just the right place Ichabod took a deep breath and walked away. The second day after flow he walked out of the enclosure with the other giraffes - into freedom - for the first time.

flow appears to encourage an integration of the physical, mental, and emotional aspects. Therefore Ichabod was able to move through the fear instead of allowing it to petrify him. Guess what? It works on humans too!

Before my chiropractic education, I really had no idea how chiropractic could help people. I thought it was just for back pain. With flow, so much more is available. It’s strange how life is, because now people come to see me with all types of symptoms and conditions. I have provided care for people with headaches, migraines, chronic pain, neck pain, shoulder/arm pain, backaches, asthma, allergies, numbness in limbs, athletic injuries, children and adults with ADD and ADHD, just to name a few. I do not treat these people's conditions or try to remove their symptoms, but I do touch the spine in such a way that the body's self-healing mechanisms appear to reorganize. In other words, "Your body just works better!"