Control

When confronted with experiences that challenge the perceived stability of life, we have an inherent tendency to try to regain control. Even our best-laid plans cannot account for many of the curve balls thrown by fate.

Sometimes the store is out of eggs when we promised to make breakfast or there is unusual traffic on the day of an important meeting. Sometimes dogs run away. Sometimes people get diagnosed with terminal cancer.  

What can be done when we are presented with things that are simply beyond our ability to control?

We can ask for help.

We can choose to face the challenge with honesty and with courage.

We can practice directing our attention to gratitude for that which is good.

The only thing we have any degree of control over is how we choose to see and respond to the challenges and the opportunities life provides. We cannot tell the wind when or how to blow, but we can learn to sail.

The Problem with Maintenance

In the alternative health field, many people choose to continue care even after there has been resolution of the problem for which they initially sought treatment. In the absence of pain or a clinical condition, continuing care that is “not deemed medically necessary” is called maintenance care. The implication is that the person has achieved a state of health that is better than when they began and they desire to stay there.

This is a reasonable position and one that is understandably desirable. There is also a problem with this perspective.

The problem of maintenance is that the objective is to plateau. The very nature of the language and the intent of maintenance is to keep someone where they are. Even if the current state is better than the old state, if the goal is stasis, this is inherently limiting in both perspective and in practice.

The experience of life and how we are able to navigate through storm and still is not done by picking a place and staying there. Life happens in the balance of stability and instability. There is comfort in stability, but also a massive impediment to growth.

A richer alternative to maintenance would be, as the Stoic philosopher Epictetus counselled, to “make the mind adaptable to any circumstances.” The adaptability of the mind is a direct reflection of the integrity and the tone of the nervous system. It stands to reason (and is evidenced in practice) that an approach to health, wellness, and well-being that promotes neural integrity will not lead to maintaining a static plateau, but a way to embody strategies that advance the human condition.

Diving In

You can’t learn to swim by looking at a lake.

Sitting on the shoreline, observing the water, and studying the technique of other swimmers will never teach you what it’s like to dive in. It is only by taking the leap that we can know how it feels to be immersed in a different element.

The ability to experience life with fullness often requires the energy for courage to do something new or uncomfortable. The extent to which we can tap into this energy and let it fuel the experience of life is directly related to the integrity of the spine and the nervous system.

The quality of the relationships we have with ourselves and others, the choices we make, how effectively our physiology functions, and how well we feel and move is all mediated by the clarity and the coherence of the nervous system. This is the reason chiropractic is interested in the spine and improvements in these quality of life measures are a hallmark of the discipline of Network Spinal Analysis.

It’s one thing to get your feet wet, but the best way to explore the breadth and the depth of the Lake of Life is to dive in.

See you in the water.