Good morning, beautiful New Day!
It doesn’t take a genius to notice that the world could use some more love right now. News headlines speak of senseless violence and antagonism, harassment and violation, and easily invoke a sense of frustration, fear, or just annoyance.
Not only that, but so much of the way our daily lives are organized at this point, from getting through traffic, to getting through the day at work, to having enough money to pay the bills, is in a way that can easily solidify our sense that life is a struggle. A struggle that we endure alone.
There’s no question, the world needs more love. But where will we get it from?
It’s always been important to me to organize my life around doing what I think the world needs. When I applied to graduate programs for Sociology in the early 2000s, I felt motivated. Yes, there was of course an ego-based motivation around being the smartest, looking good, success, achievement, and the like. But beyond that, when I looked around at the world, I saw some things to be inspired by, and a whole lot of other things I didn’t like very much. I was motivated to be part of the solution.
Where I saw struggle, disconnection, and strife, I wanted my work and my research to shed light on these social problems and potential solutions. The Durkheimian concept of “anomie”– that the conditions of modern life have lead to a breakdown in values, connection, and purpose, and the Marxist concept of “alienation”– that an unnatural separation between humans of different races and genders was occurring due to an unnatural separation of most people from the fruits of their labor, were the problems I saw. The solution would be a world built on a different set of values and organized differently, capitalizing on what people have in common and their common dreams, which I had no doubt existed beneath it all.
Now, as anyone who knows me or has heard me speak about how I got into chiropractic knows, I left my grad program after 2 years to pursue chiropractic. The original purpose, of helping bring to the world what I felt was needed, was no longer alive for me in academia. Beyond being fed up with the day to day of being a grad student, I had serious doubts that writing about something, at least for me, was going to help the world change in any positive direction.
Yes, the world needs chiropractic. But it’s more than that. What’s missing for so many is connection, true human connection both to ourselves and connection to a community. A recent Ted Talk by Johann Hari argues that addiction– whether it’s substances, behaviors, or patterns of thought– has an antidote. That antidote isn’t sobriety. It’s connection. Lack of a sense of human connection, unnatural for virtually all of human history until now, is a driving force in addiction that leads to purposelessness, lives ruined, and death.
The me of 12 years ago would have completely scoffed at the idea that any kind of wellness or healing could bring change to the world. But luckily, the me that I kept thinking I became keeps changing 
What I experienced after that first Network Spinal Analysis chiropractic adjustment, as I reflected on it years later, was a sense of connection, to myself, and others that felt totally new to me. This was the version of me I wanted to be for the world.
What I’m committed to now aren’t ideas that change the world, though I certainly have plenty of ideas, but creating experiences with people that change the world. If at least part of the solution the world is looking for is connection, experiencing wholeness and commonality with those around us is a prerequisite. Because the brain and the nervous system are what connects you– serving as you internal and external radio antenna– chiropractic is a great and necessary place to start. Going further, Network Spinal Analysis actually de-activates the stress physiology, fight or flight response, and corresponding brain function that leads us to us experiencing the world as one big rat race.
I look around at the world today and I have no doubt that there are people suffering, sick, and yes, dying, because they aren’t getting the care that would result in an experience of wholeness, connection, and community. We all have a part to play in being the solution. As part of that, please, tell a friend about chiropractic.
