I could no longer use the word _____________
Great morning to you, New Day! Happy summer!
As you’ve probably noticed in your life, there is a cycle for everything. Times for working hard. And times for relaxing. Times for building. And times for consolidating.
At New Day, we were in a cycle of building leading up to our 5 year anniversary party celebration in April 2018. After that was more of a time for relaxing and consolidating, until now. Now, as some of you already know, we are beginning our annual careplan sale.
The focus of our sale, at that time, was the cream of the crop of our New Day community; our practice members who are in ongoing care with us and have chosen having a healthy spine and nervous system over the long term as a necessary component of their health. Participating in the sale is an easy way to continue making that choice, by accessing the lowest prices available of the year.
So there I was over the last weeks of June, getting ready for our sale, and I started to notice that I wasn’t feeling the same level of excitement as I did last year.
Something was feeling off, and I wasn’t sure what it was. Through a (perfectly timed of course) series of situations, conversations, and insights, I realized that the problem stemmed from a word and the ENERGY NEUTRAL world that word was creating.
What word am I talking about? Can you guess it?
I took this pretty picture while out for a walk in our beautiful Northcenter Chicago neighborhood!
It’s a word commonly used to describe a person’s health and wellbeing. And it’s a word that we used in the title of our most popular ongoing careplan for our New Day practice members.
It might help you if I share briefly what I mean by energy neutral. Donny Epstein, chiropractor and creator of Network Spinal, has a concept of 3 energetic states that we might be expressing at any given time (physically, emotionally, mentally, in life, etc). These states are energy poor, energy neutral, and energy rich.
Energy poor, as you might imagine, is a state of breakdown. There isn’t enough energy to sustain the basic functionality of a system, and so the whole is breaking into parts. We suffer with aches and pains, or disease. There isn’t enough money in the bank to cover the bills. The relationship goes from “we” into two “me’s”. An example of chiropractic care that comes from an energy poor context would be a pain clinic. Energy poor states are sometimes necessary, but as you might imagine, you don’t want to stay there for long.
When I think of what energy neutral means, the term “status quo” comes to mind. When we’re energy neutral we are no longer in crisis and breakdown, BUT we’re basically devoting all of our time, energy, and focus to maintaining the relatively better situation that we’ve created and ensuring that we only experience minor fluctuations around that (less bad, fine, okay, good) situation that we’ve created in our physicality or otherwise.
There was something so yuckily energy neutral about what I noticed happening in the practice that was completely incongruent with the nature of New Day and it was hinging on this particular word in question. (CLICK HERE TO SEE IF YOUR GUESS IS CORRECT!)
WELLNESS is the word. Wellness is a word that was created and came into usage with the best of all intentions, I’m sure. But now, wellness for me connotes a bland energy of stasis. There’s nothing wrong. And since there’s nothing wrong you have the luxury of engaging in this care to maintain you, keep you safe, certain, out of crisis, basically a “return to fine.” An insurance policy, of sorts.
There’s nothing wrong with all of this, and in fact I believe there is a time and a place for energy neutral states. But it can’t be the focus, and it can’t be the goal.
Choosing Network Care for your nervous system, spine, and life is helping you have the best chance possible for a healthy life at all times. There will be fluctuations, and there will be breakdowns. There will be times of comfort and stability. But most of all, there is the overall sense that we are choosing growth, development and possibility in our lives over time.
It is from this place that we have re-named “Year of Wellness” to now be called “Year of Energy and Aliveness.” The focus is to help you consciously choose energy and aliveness for your health and your life over the long term. Just saying it and thinking it has me feeling energized by the possibilities!
In this vein, I am creating a series of special events and gatherings in the spirit of the energy and aliveness of our New Day practice members. It’s been so much fun creating something new, and I thank you for understanding why it is important to be continually open to growth and change, and I look forward to creating with you this week through our adjustments together 
Have you ever changed your world by changing the word/s you use? Comment here and tell me about it!
