Every healing art has a philosophy. That is to say that those involved in a healing profession approach your care with a way of thinking. This is an important concept because as a consumer your approach to health should be in line with the approach that your provider takes. You go to your provider because they have studied long and hard to give you the best advice possible about your health. This should result in dialogue about how to approach your health challenges and make decisions about how to best reach higher levels of health. In the end it is important that you and your healthcare team are seeing things in the same way. Without this partnership a true relationship is not possible. In the past the most common doctor-patient relationship was for you to just do what you were told without thinking about whether or not it makes sense in regard to your own healthcare philosophy. The world of healthcare has changed for the better. These days patients are informed and armed with information about their condition and the many available ways to treat a problem. After consultation they can make an informed choice based on the best advice given to them by a trained professional that they trust.
Chiropractic care has a traditional philosophy that is separate and distinct from medical philosophy. Which one is better? It depends on the condition and it depends on how you look at health. At the root of chiropractic philosophy are the 33 Principles of Chiropractic. They are based on natural laws that depend upon the fact that the body is self regulating and self healing. The first Principle was discussed in a previous blog entry titled “The Major Premise.” It told us that there is an intelligence in all matter that maintains matter in existence by the regulation of its properties. Clearly there is such intelligence because all matter (anything that occupies space) would not behave according to the laws of physics without it.
The second Principle of Chiropractic states that “The expression of this intelligence through matter is the Chiropractic Meaning of Life.” This has little to do with the spiritual meaning of life and everything to do with the biological meaning of life. You live because you are alive and the choice for how you express yourself biologically is subject to your genetics, your biological history and the way you care for yourself now. Chiropractic is both a healing art and a way of living your life. In chiropractic we say that the body heals from the inside out. Your biological life supports you socially, emotionally and spiritually. You know this because when you are ill everything requires so much more effort. This is where I fit in as a chiropractor. Chiropractic was designed and developed to help insure that you can live your life to your fullest potential. There are circumstances that happen in your life that can limit the expression of the intelligence that is necessary for you to express your life potential. Chiropractors are trained to locate and correct disturbances that limit your expression of life. Using a combination of gentle nervous system correction and lifestyle coaching we help you get the best out of life.
Live long but also live well because living long is not that great if you are having challenges with the healthy expression of life. The next 33 Principles blog article will take this idea a step further when we go over the 3rd Principle, “The Union of Intelligence and Matter.” As always please feel free to leave comments below.
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