In this office, we are essentially vitalists. What does that mean? It means that we believe that there’s more to the body than just moving parts and chemistry. There’s a dynamic life force animating all living things, and any truly holistic approach to health must recognize and take that into account. This isn’t religion, but we do recognize that every single person who walks into this space (ok, even everyone who doesn’t) is more than the sum of their parts.
Great! So how do we put that nice philosophy into tangible action? We use an approach called the Home Run Formula (following the lead of Dr. Scott Walker, the chiropractor who developed the Neuro Emotional Technique). In the Home Run Formula, there are 4 “bases” to cover when addressing a health challenge: structure, nutrition, toxicity and emotion. Basically, those are the only things that can cause a problem, and therefore the solutions are to be found when examining the four bases. Incidentally, the Home Run Formula is also a very useful model to use when you are evaluating your own self-care habits (or lack thereof). Are you covering all your bases? You can click on the bases depicted here to find out more about what you can do to check in with each base and also what we would do here in the office to check in with the bases.
We’re not aiming to eradicate all suffering or to attain eternal life in the flesh. After all, even Buddha noticed that human life is suffering. What we are aiming for is to reduce pointless suffering. Maybe it makes you “a better person” to shiver in a cold dark room for days, weeks or months... but wouldn’t you feel ridiculous if you later found out that actually the only thing you needed to have warmth and light for all that time was a flick of a switch that was right there in the room the whole time?! That’s kind of what a chiropractic adjustment is: a flick of a switch. If you look at the word “subluxation” (that thing that we chiropractors correct), you can see that in addition to the standard definition of “a slight dislocation,” it might also be interpreted to mean “a decrease in light.” Hmmm!
