Adapted from the work of Steve Hoffman, DC by Douglas J. Berry, BS, MS, DC, CCEP
The biggest issue in your health is: It’s not what you know don’t about health…. It’s what you do know that isn’t so! Health is not an event, it is a process. Chiropractic views health as a process. Traditional medical thought has treated health, or the loss of it as an event.
Is a drought an event? A drought is not one day without rain. A drought results from a process of many, many days without rain.
Is a flood an event? Is a flood one day with too much rain? A flood is a process resulting from many days of more rain than the soil can handle. A stress greater than the land’s ability to adapt.
A fire is an event – an emergency. Emergencies require immediate attention. Most people let their health care consist of putting out one fire after another when they treat their health like an event.
For example, is a headache really an event? Are headaches the result of too little aspirin in the blood? Why do aspirin containers say for temporary relief? Aspirin treats a headache like an event.
A broken wrist is an event! It is treated as an event – it is set and cast. Then it takes time to heal! Healing is a process. All processes take time.
Healthy eating is a process. Our body’s reaction to tainted food is an event. A lifetime of Twinkies and sodas is a process. Make a decision for healthy eating.
Exercise or Sporting Event? We go to sporting events. We do not exercise as an event. We exercise as a result of a lifestyle decision to engage in a process that we recognize as good for us.
The birth of a child is an event. Raising a healthy, happy, drug-free family is a process that requires time, energy, discipline, education and setting it as a family priority.
All processes take time. Your health today is a result of the priority you have placed on your health up until now. To change your health tomorrow, change your priorities today.
Health is a process. Health, like happiness is a journey, not a destination. Enjoy the journey and strive for excellence. Be a better person tomorrow than today.
Take a walk. Do it once in a while (event). Do it for a while to lose weight (finite process). Make it part of your lifestyle and it becomes a true process. Where’s the real benefit?
Isn’t it a contradiction to tell us that heart disease is a silent killer that results from years of inactivity, poor diet, and stress (a process) then treat it with surgery (an event) and expect a healthy outcome?
WHY?
When our every experience tells us life, happiness, and health are processes would we be told by traditional medical care that we get sick as the result of an event? Simple, it is the only way to convince us that a pill, powder, potion, injection, or surgery is the way to health! As long as we continue to believe that health is lost as the result of an event like germs, not wearing a jacket, or simple bad luck we will continue to take pills and have our organs cut out in the name of health. We think better living through chemistry is the answer, yet, the studies appear almost daily that demonstrates the devastating effect drugs are having on our health and our culture.
WHEN we understand that health is lost as a result of a process only then can we accept the way to recover one’s health and have it flourish is the result of a process also.
SET An Example
If you do not want your kids to take drugs to make them feel better when they are feeling bad maybe you shouldn’t set the example of a pill for every ill.
SOAR with a New Level of Thinking
Einstein said, ”You cannot solve problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” Today’s health crisis cannot be solved with the same thinking that created it. We must start thinking process and make lifestyle changes for the HEALTH of it.
WOULD You Rather
· Be healthy or just not sick?
· Be happy or just not sad?
· Be wealthy or just not poor?
· Be intelligent or just not dumb?
· Pursue the positive or just avoid the negative?
THE Sickness Process
We start out life with the potential for Total Health. We encounter physical, chemical, or emotional stress beyond our ability to adapt. This causes a distortion to take place in the nervous system, which then causes malfunction in one or more body systems. This leads eventually to disease and then to symptoms. Ultimately, if left unhandled, to death.
HEALTH as an Event
Deals with the symptoms, not the causes, of a person’s loss of health. By not addressing
the malfunction in the nervous system, medicine little choice but to use chemicals and surgery to attempt to deal with the effects (symptoms) of a malfunctioning body. This approach may bring comfort but it does not bring health.
HEALTH as a Process
Addresses the fundamental causes of the downward spiral of a person’s health and well-being and, by focusing on the process which caused the loss of health in the first place, begins a process of correction. This affords the individual the greatest possible opportunity to experience, perhaps for the first time, an upward spiral in their health and well being.
GET THE BIG IDEA – The Body Can Heal Itself!
You don’t have to think about seeing, hearing, or breathing. You don’t have to make your hearty beat or influence your own digestion. Cuts do not heal faster in college graduates. SO, what controls our self healing ability? The key to our ability to heal ourselves is our inborn intelligence. This inborn intelligence flows throughout your entire body by way of the nervous system. This communication can sometimes be blocked.
WHAT Blocks Our Ability to Heal Ourselves?
Chiropractors call this block to nervous system function a subluxation. This affects the muscles which attach to the bones of the spine. This causes spinal misalignments which cause more nervous system disturbance resulting in a downward spiral in a person’s health and vitality.
A CHIROPRACTIC ADJUSTMENT IS
The beginning of a process to remove any interference with proper nervous system function thus improving muscle function and restoring structural integrity. The result is an upward spiral of that person’s health and vitality and is therefore the single greatest gift one human being can give another. It is chiropractic’s gift to you!
Like All Processes
Restoring health takes time. When you make chiropractic part of your lifestyle you will be adding years to your life and life to your years.