The Promise, The Practice
Since 2016, I have felt the exponential escalation of division. When everyone seems to be throwing fireballs or ducking for cover, finding stillness in the storm is challenging. For the past two years, I have felt deeply the sadness and anger of real and perceived injustices. As much as I would like to have a sense of control over this chaos, I simply do not. I feel angry about it. Often.
My good fortune is such that I have three teachers who help me to maintain perspective, who generously support me, and who allow me to show up as a more congruent version of myself. One is my daughter. Who am I in her eyes? How do I show her that strength does not mean hardness, that disagreement does not make an enemy, and what it looks like to trust instead of to fear? Another is my partner. Her patience and kindness are unparalleled, her commitment to love and integrity is adamant, and her ability to hold space for me (including my anger, my sadness, my grief) - especially when I do not express these emotions skillfully - has tempered the fire of my anger without diminishing its light. The third teacher is my chiropractic practice. The opportunity to educate and learn, see and be seen, offer and receive, empower and be empowered is a gift. What I recognize is that there can be diversity without division and unity without conformity.
Regardless of your politics, your decisions about how you choose to navigate covid, your opinions about mandates, the level of your concern about personal and public health, your relationship to law enforcement, your age, or your educational background - I am listening and I hear you. Whether you are a college professor, a food-truck owner, a stay-at-home mom, an industrial psychologist, a recovering addict, a dancer, a musician, an attorney, or a carpenter - I see you.
At a time when there is such focus on what we oppose, it is easy to lose sight of what we stand for. It has been and continues to be an honor and a privilege to collaborate with the many and various kinds of folks who walk through my office door. I hold a sacred trust within my heart that this work - helping people to remember their connection to themselves, to others, and to Source - is one of the most powerful ways to cultivate peace. So, here is my promise, and this is my practice:
I will listen and I will ask thoughtful questions.
I will offer a perspective on health and healing that clarifies, empowers, and connects.
I will maintain an open and a safe environment.
I will never withhold chiropractic care or counsel on the basis of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, political affiliation, or vaccination status.
I will support your right to informed consent and your right to choose what happens to your body.
I will invite you to consider that the free flow of wisdom, from above-down, and inside-out is the way that life is expressed.
The aim of my work is to help you liberate and integrate who you are as an embodied being. To be embodied is to have an experience mediated by your nervous system. Chiropractic promotes health by directly and positively influencing the ability of the nervous system to effectively coordinate all of the functions associated with life. Everything is connected. My liberation is tied to your liberation. It is often the case that what I share with you is as much a reminder for myself as it is for you. I don’t have it all figured, but I do want to step out of the fog and toward the light of a clear blue morning.
Control + Shift : Connect
I am not a tech person. I prefer to read words on paper instead of a screen. The word “code” prompts me to think of an occult message or a set of ethical principles instead of computational language. As evolutionary as cyberspace is and is becoming, I still prefer the dirty, salty, temperate, and acoustic experience of the physical world. All of that being said, shortcuts when applied adeptly can be a useful way to cut through terrain. There is little doubt that we have entered the Dark Wood and are still finding our way through. Through is, after all, the only way out.
One of the meta-themes emerging from the Age of Crisis we see, feel, and hear around us is a paradigm shift from models of compliance to models of collaboration. The compliance model of governance from authority is a blunt instrument. Blunt instruments are seldom an effective or appropriate tool for challenges that require precision, coordination, and nuance. Consensus cannot be commanded, cohesion cannot be achieved by separating citizens into classes, communication cannot be clarified with censorship. A collaborative model encourages transparency and discourse, recognizes more than one solution, and can effectively coordinate across domains. Control is at the center of the compliance model, whereas connection is at the center of collaboration.
Whether or not it was Einstein who remarked “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them,” there is a distinct ring of truth to the sentiment. This idea is an invitation to use a different set of keys. The shortcut Control + Shift allows us to change the keyboard in use when more than one is available. If we change the keys, perhaps we change the language. When we change the language, we open to a new perspective. The shift from control to connect might be the beam of light that breaks through the trees to lead us through.
Both Sides, Now
My father once told me that “there are two sides to every story, and then there’s the truth”. In his concise way, he was illuminating a critical piece of sense-making. The thing we refer to as “the truth” is something we can only see through a glass, darkly…it is something known only as well as we know ourselves.
In a similar way, our limited ability to make sense of truth is reflected in the parable of the blind men and the elephant. A band of blind men encounter an obstacle on the path. One man grabs a leg and declares it is a tree. Another is wrapped by the trunk and proclaims it is a snake. Yet another is flicked by its tail and decides it is a rope. Another feels an ear and calls it a fan. We are always at the mercy of the limitations of our perception. The only chance we have to address the complex issues that currently and will continue to face us is discourse. Discourse requires the willingness to communicate what we “see” and have that heard and reflected back to us by others who are also having their own experience even and especially when we do not agree on what we perceive reality to be.
These days our elephant is the incredible vehicle of the internet. Never before in the history of our species has so much information been so accessible for so many. This technology has facilitated our ability to find facts, proof, evidence, and opinions for any position. Yet the process of inquiry has always been about more than simply researching information that supports what you already believe. In its essence, science is a process of inquiry. Science derives from philosophy and the dialectic tradition of Socrates. Dialectic means investigating the truth of opinions; it is the art of debate. The root of this word is shared with dialogue, which means “to converse with”. My point is simply this - in order to do science, to investigate truth, to practice inquiry, there must be an open, transparent exchange of ideas. Without this criterion, without a conversation to propel meaning, refine arguments, and clarify positions, we are doomed to hug one leg of the elephant and convince ourselves it’s a tree.
There are always (and at least) two sides to every story, which reminds me of the courage and humility in Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides, Now:
Oh, but now old friends they're acting strange
And they shake their heads and they tell me that I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every dayI've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all
It is unlikely any of us will ever know all life has to offer. But we can engage with it in a way that is meaningful, draws us closer to the truth, and employs a best practice that was recorded long ago: charity does not behave unseemly, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil.