"I need some distraction. Oh beautiful release. Memory seeps from my veins. Let me be empty and weightless and maybe I'll find some peace tonight."
When I was a child I discovered anything that emptied my mind and filled me with joy was my escape. It was lying with my sisters alongside the clubhouse pool warming my cold wet body against the hot cement and drawing cloud animals in the sky. It was climbing ladders into one cherry tree after the next with my aunt in search of the best cherries, and eating so many our bellies would cramp. It was the smell of anise cookies that filled my grandmother's house at Christmas. It was packing up the camper and heading out to explore the vast unknown world.....
Can you remember learning how to escape? We escape whatever it is we perceive as stress at that moment when our mind empties and our heart is filled with joy. Even God said the seventh day is for rest, or forty days in the desert for a deeper escape.
Stress is a significant risk factor for.... well just about every disease or health problem that exists. I could detail out specific mechanisms by which this occurs, but simply put stress is the one risk factor most people feel they have no control over.
Above I quote the song 'Angel' by Sarah McLachlan where the distraction, the escape she describes is a drug. Because sometimes we forget how to escape or worse yet have never discovered how to escape.
When you take time for yourself long enough to discover your own escape, your stress decreases. When your stress decreases, your health improves. May we all journey in the direction of healthier lives so we can better serve God and each other.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Muscle Testing
My mom was always one of those people who just "knew". She "knew" which of my friends were good and which ones weren't. She "knew" when I was really sick and when I was just trying to get out of going to school, and worst of all she "knew" when I was selectively choosing my truths. Mom called it "intuition". I called it a completely illogical thought process, and like most teens aspired to be nothing like my mom.
So the first time a chiropractor used muscle testing on me as as diagnostic technique, and explained its effectiveness by telling me our bodies "intuitively" know what is good and bad for us - I rolled my eyes (just like I used to do for my mom) and asked for a little more "scientific" explanation. It didn't seem logical to me that holding a bottle of supplements or touching random points on my body would make me weak or strong simply because my body just "knew" what was best. In my world A + B = C, and I was going to figure out exactly what A and B were.
For years I studied and searched for logical explanations and research to explain exactly what caused our problems and exactly what would fix them. I believed only statistics based on solid research could prove something to be true. It didn't matter to me that when Koch and Pasteur founded the germ theory, a man drank a glass filled with "deadly vibrio cholerae bacterium" and never even got sick. Science had proven that specific pathogens cause specific diseases and I turned a deaf ear to the crazies like my mom and this chiropractor. It wasn't until after many years of practice that I started to realize that science was not capable of explaining exactly how our bodies function let alone heal. Eggs are good and then they are bad; one day a test is considered diagnositic and the next it is questionable; one day a drug is the cure and the next day people are dying from it - there is so much more to healing than simply science.
One patient after the next came to me claiming to be cured by prayer, by diet, by all sorts of things that had no logical or scientific explanation. It was easy to say these cures were merely "placebo", but regardless of what caused these patients to heal, the cures I saw were real. I started to wonder why all doctors know that "placebo" works but nobody could figure out why. We can no better explain why placebos work for some people than we can know all the unknowns (A's and B's). As Lipton explains in his book "Biology of Belief", our subconscious mind has a much greater influence on our health than our conscious and there is much to be learned in the field of quantum physics.
For years I refused to use muscle testing as a diagnostic tool, as even I thought it smelled a little bit like quackery. Today I use science to make my basic assessments, and will often use muscle testing to help guide me in the treatment of patients. There is an "intuitive" nature that helps me when doing muscle testing and for that I reluctantly thank my mom.
God chose my parents and every person who has touched my life especially for me. God controls the universe, knows all the A's and B's - not me. I was like a salmon swimming upstream until I figured out that there are some things that we just "know".
So the first time a chiropractor used muscle testing on me as as diagnostic technique, and explained its effectiveness by telling me our bodies "intuitively" know what is good and bad for us - I rolled my eyes (just like I used to do for my mom) and asked for a little more "scientific" explanation. It didn't seem logical to me that holding a bottle of supplements or touching random points on my body would make me weak or strong simply because my body just "knew" what was best. In my world A + B = C, and I was going to figure out exactly what A and B were.
For years I studied and searched for logical explanations and research to explain exactly what caused our problems and exactly what would fix them. I believed only statistics based on solid research could prove something to be true. It didn't matter to me that when Koch and Pasteur founded the germ theory, a man drank a glass filled with "deadly vibrio cholerae bacterium" and never even got sick. Science had proven that specific pathogens cause specific diseases and I turned a deaf ear to the crazies like my mom and this chiropractor. It wasn't until after many years of practice that I started to realize that science was not capable of explaining exactly how our bodies function let alone heal. Eggs are good and then they are bad; one day a test is considered diagnositic and the next it is questionable; one day a drug is the cure and the next day people are dying from it - there is so much more to healing than simply science.
One patient after the next came to me claiming to be cured by prayer, by diet, by all sorts of things that had no logical or scientific explanation. It was easy to say these cures were merely "placebo", but regardless of what caused these patients to heal, the cures I saw were real. I started to wonder why all doctors know that "placebo" works but nobody could figure out why. We can no better explain why placebos work for some people than we can know all the unknowns (A's and B's). As Lipton explains in his book "Biology of Belief", our subconscious mind has a much greater influence on our health than our conscious and there is much to be learned in the field of quantum physics.
For years I refused to use muscle testing as a diagnostic tool, as even I thought it smelled a little bit like quackery. Today I use science to make my basic assessments, and will often use muscle testing to help guide me in the treatment of patients. There is an "intuitive" nature that helps me when doing muscle testing and for that I reluctantly thank my mom.
God chose my parents and every person who has touched my life especially for me. God controls the universe, knows all the A's and B's - not me. I was like a salmon swimming upstream until I figured out that there are some things that we just "know".
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