100 Miles

Two practice members of mine today asked a similar question about their progress. Essentially, the question was, "Why am I still experiencing a symptom now and then even after I am better and have started treatment with you?"

I came up with this analogy:

I told them that they should think of their spinal and nervous system problem as their body being a distance of 100 miles from Normal. "When I adjust you," I said, "you tend to think that I have moved the bone or improved your body situation by the complete 100 miles." In their minds, they have been restored to normal, or near normal, in one fell swoop!

But, really, the problems has only improved a distance of 8 miles. And then, after their visit, they go back to their lives and encounter more psychological, chemical and physical stresses that pile up on top of the junk that got them to see me in the first place. These new stresses push them 2 miles from the improved place I put them, 2 miles farther from Normal.

Now, they stand at milepost 6, not milepost 0.

When they come in again for the next treatment at milepost 6, I advance them 9 miles to milepost 15. Now, they are 15 miles closer to Normal, but they are still quite vulnerable to wear and tear stresses and new stresses. And as they go about their lives they still encounter stresses that knock them back farther away from Normal yet again.

It is a process! It may take us some patience, but at least we have a process and it is an extremely powerful and effective one at that.

And so, what is in our minds a linear progression toward improvement is, in fact, the serrated edge of a saw blade of ups and downs, or forwards and reversals, that in time add up to a significant improvement.

This improvement allows the body to organize itself better and better resist new problems and heal from both new and old problems faster and more competently.

If we want, we can even go beyond the level of health and well-being that we experienced before we "hurt" ourselves and sought chiropractic care.

Consciousness and the Development of Illness

By Dr. David Walls-Kaufman


So, you went to the doctor and he diagnosed you with, say, allergies. You may have asked him or her, “How did I get them?”
And he or she shrugged their shoulders and said something like, “We find things like this just happen to people.”
In spite of the sophistication and technological advancement of medicine, the cause of diseases and conditions continue to elude us. They do so to the extent that our scientists are exploring ways to improve our genes as they have done to our tomatoes and oranges.
It will be ungodly expensive, it seems.
But chiropractic philosophy and medical research have told us a great deal about the causes of disease. While medical practice has a very mechanistic philosophy, chiropractic, and medical researchers, are talking in a very holistic philosophy. When you ask me how does one get sick, I give you the answer emerging from this school:
Psychological, chemical and physical stresses in your life overwhelm your body’s innate life-magic for managing itself. This life power is considerable, but you aren’t a god, you’re mortal. This life power is as much a thing of consciousness as it is cellular energy. This “consciousness” must have a model, or it would be completely adaptable and changeable.
So, stress events wound your consciousness, and this in turn mars how your nervous system and brain are handling all the thousands of systems involved in your perfect health. Now, some of those systems are “off”, and you develop symptoms of allergy or high cholesterol or anything else that is a slip from optimum health.
And so, to get at the cause of disease, we need to look beyond genes, which medical research has shown us are also expressions of our consciousness and nervous system, and look at ways to reduce stresses and then attack the chain of events in disease at the level of nervous system and consciousness.
This is more our future than gadgets.