Here’s a very simple 12-minute video that makes it visual.
Sometimes, it can be that simple…
Over the years as I’ve continued to follow alternative healing to maintain my health, I’ve been sharing what I’ve learned with my friends to provide them with just that: Alternative options to Western medicine. Sadly, as many of us have discovered over the years, Western medicine often seems to have followed the money that often comes from the misfortune of others in what has now become a major industry
The Cancer “industrial complex” is certainly one example of this business approach. In Seattle, we have the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center that employs thousands of people in its research and care facility. And I acknowledge that they have indeed helped many over the years. But I also point out that this institution brings in $1 Billion a year in donations for ongoing research, employing thousands every year. And if someone actually came up with a basic cure for cancer tomorrow, what would happen to this institution?
Alternative medicine includes traditional Chinese Medicine, acupuncture, massage, and – of course – Chiropractic. With alternative medicine, diagnosing the source of your ailment/illness is the key. And it all has to do with balance. If you eat or drink too much of something, there will always be consequences on your body. Our Mother had been raised on the philosophy of food being medicine and maintaining balance in our diets to stay healthy. I still remember how we’d get lectured a lot about not eating too much candy because it was too ‘hot’ and to drink the many soups she would make because they were ‘cool’. Mom had never been formally educated as a woman growing up in a tiny Chinese village in the early 1900s. But I later realized how she had received a very traditional upbringing where knowledge from over the centuries was passed along to her as a child (and she passed it along to our sister when she was growing up). And as illiterate as Mom may have been in Western eyes, she was wise beyond her years as we all later learned.
It wasn’t until I left home at 17 and moved to Toronto during the ’60s and the hippie days that I began to understand and appreciate much more of what our Mother had tried to impart to us as kids. During those alternative ’60s, many of us talked about Yin and Yang and balance in life and spirituality. And one day, it suddenly dawned on me that this was actually what our Mother had been lecturing us about during our childhood. ‘Hot’ was ‘Yin’ and “Cool’ was ‘Yang.’ Then over the years, the scientific terms Acidic and Alkaline started to be associated with Yin and Yang. And suddenly, things started to make so much sense! If you drink or eat too many acidic foods, it will make you ill (conversely, too much alkaline will also throw your system off). Balance and moderation are always the key. I’ll get into that in future posts but I wanted to bring up the concept of balance as an introduction to how Chiropractic works.
In my earlier post, I talked about my first experiences with chiropractic over 30 years ago when I took my future wife in to see a chiropractor for the first time to treat her annual allergic attacks. (You can read that post by clicking HERE.)
Your spine plays a critical role in your daily health and your body’s ability to maintain balance day-in-and-day-out. While your brain is what literally runs everything, your spine is what allows your brain to communicate with your body and manage everything 24/7. Your spinal cord runs through your spine and connects to all of your vital organs and everything else in your body, relaying information constantly. Well, imagine if you fall and hurt your spine. And that intricately balanced system gets thrown off balance. You wouldn’t be getting proper signals from certain organs nor would those organs be receiving the proper signals from your brain to respond correctly. Which was how our first chiropractor explained why her allergies would keep coming back every spring. Imagine if your brain realizes that pollen is in the air so, in response, it orders certain organs to produce enough adrenaline to counteract the allergy. But if those lines of communication are disrupted because your spine is out of alignment and not relaying accurate signals, your body may not be releasing enough adrenaline to counteract your allergic response! It may sound too incredibly simple to believe but this can often be the case and most people never realize this for years. Often, a fall or an accident is long forgotten but the consequences can linger over a lifetime unless you get your spine re-aligned.