Profound Yet Simple

by Earl W. Powell, Ph.D.

Many of the most profound ideas in life are really very simple and many of the most simple things in life are really very profound. For instance, the basic ideas of many religions can often be stated simply, but they are ideas that have been profound enough to change the course of millions of lives, and indeed, the course of history.

Simple ideas, or what is afterwards thought of as simple, often come through long study and research -- painstaking trial and error until at last the truth is found. Then upon this truth is built a great and lasting contribution of vital concern, sometimes to all mankind.

Much of the simple truth of chiropractic has come this way. Dedicated men and women searching for answers without closed minds, accumulating knowledge dating back even to the father of health philosophy, Hippocrates.

What is this simple idea that now benefits the health of millions people around the world? It is simply that the nerve system is the "message-carrier" of good health to every part of your body. When there is an interference with the messages to and from the brain, in the nerve system, ill-health will result.

There is no more perfectly ordered mechanism in all of creation than the living body. All that is essential to the maintenance of good health is contained WITHIN us and, so long as the life forces commanded by our innate intelligence are permitted to flow freely through the nerve system good health is the inevitable result. Because of the great wealth of knowledge developed over the years, chiropractors today can find nerve interference with greater ease and adjust the spine with greater accuracy to open "nerve contact" and let the message of good health get through.

The profound wish for good health can most often be fulfilled with the simple truth of chiropractic.

Two Reasons Why Upper Cervical Care is Attractive

Adapted from "Chiropractic is attractive because..."

by Bill Esteb 

1. It trusts the wisdom of the body.

Many upper cervical doctors overlook this when explaining upper cervical care to patients. Perhaps this is because the allure of showing up as the hero, mimicking the attitude of traditional doctors, is more gratifying than telling the truth about the nature of healing. In other words, doctors, of any ilk, don't heal. Nor do drugs. Or adjustments!

Recovering one's health is a shedding process not an acquiring process. Which is to say, we each have within us the ability to heal. Usually, health can manifest by reducing obstructions or interferences rather than filling a void because something is missing.

We're not flawed, we're merely blocked. We're not deficient, we're merely constrained from our fullest expression. We're not suffering a drug shortage, we're merely exceeding our ability to accommodate one or more stressors. Patients are fully equipped for health. It's not you, it's them.

2. It’s simple.

By the second quarter in college, many upper cervical doctors have lost the simple elegance and minimalism of the care they provide. Obfuscated by technique, practice procedures, physiology and beneath layers of dogma and seminar rhetoric, upper cervical doctors sometimes emerge later as spinal therapists, medical doctor wannabes, patient pleasers or just confused.

The principles of upper cervical care often take a backseat to the practice of it and the "how" of practice often eclipses the "why." In the process, patients rarely learn that their nervous system controls the whole show and releasing their potential to self heal and function optimally, mediated by the nervous system is the focus of upper cervical care—not pain relief, posture restoration or even "treating" subluxations.

Obviously, this creates a major communication challenge. This week ask your upper cervical doctor to tell you the truth. And to do it simply. Because as Einstein observed, "If you can't explain something simply, you don't understand it well enough."