 After the initial stage of care, we begin to move into a stretch. This is not simply a physical stretch that you do like when you are doing your daily exercises, although the physical stretch does play a role. I’m often asked why we don’t start off the initial stage of care with a stretch. The reason being, when most people come into the office, their body is experiencing a lot of tension; physically, emotionally and mentally. If we stretch the tissues of the body that already have tension placed on them, what would happen? Similar to stretching the strings of a guitar past their tension point, they would snap and injury could occur. Stretching is initialised later on in care, after the nervous system has a chance to calm down and the body is no longer under high tension. Physically, the stretch reduces tension in our body, builds greater flexibility, etc. We know lots of the physical reasons why we stretch. However, that is not the main goal of our the stretch in care. In this level of care, we stretch a person’s spine and in turn their nervous system to allow them to have a more appropriate behvaiour through awareness of their emotions and range of emotions. Emotions are experienced differently in our nervous system, depending on if the energy is more feminine or more masculine. This does not have to do with males or females. We all have both feminine and masculine energy within us. Depending on the situation, we can express our energy as more feminine or more masculine and have different results. Some people also have more of one energy type in their genetic make up than the other. In individuals with more feminine energy, the stretch allows them to get ready to take action after feeling an emotion. Have you heard the expression, ‘it’s all talk’? Well, the purpose of an emotion is to get you to take an action. Anger is good, if it allows you to do something about it. But what do a lot of people do instead? They talk about it and then they release the energy before they take action on it. If you got angry and then stood up for yourself or for someone else, the energy of anger was for you to speak your voice. If you got angry and talked to your friend about how angry you were but nothing changed in your life, then there was a missed opportunity. Now, I’m not saying all actions are good, i.e. getting angry and then hitting someone, only that emotions allow you to take actions. In individuals with more masculine energy, it allows them to increase the number of emotions they experience i.e. their range of emotions, in order to change their behaviour. If you only experienced 2 motions: good and bad, then everything that happened to you would cause the reaction of good or bad. What if we introduced, loved and sadness? Then you would be able to change your reaction/ behaviour based on which emotion you felt. If when it’s bad, wouldn’t it be good to know if it was bad vs sad? Yes, because it would lead to a different behaviour. Love, satisfied, fulfilled, those emotions would lead to better responses in your body and nervous system and in turn your life. Want to increase your range of emotion or take action towards change? Give us a call 613-761-1600
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 We take care of our outward appearance by the clothes we wear, how we groom ourselves, exercising to look a certain way, etc. but what habits do we have to nurture us on the inside? Task: Take a look at your weekly schedule and tasks that you do, is there time for your inner nourishment? For myself, I found morning meditation, working out at the gym for increased energy and strength, journalling for inner reflection and visiting my chiropractor for inner balance on my weekly schedule. If you didn’t find any, here are some suggestions to help:
We spend so much time worrying about how others perceive us that we don’t spend time on what really matters to us and that’s how we feel and think internally. Work on your inside world and it will be reflected in your outer world. As you take more time to connect with you, you will notice your quality of life changes around you as well. Need more help? Give us a call for a free 15 minute consultation 613-761-1600  The second intelligence is the emotional healing intelligence. The purpose of an emotion is to regulate your life force to cause you to take rapid action, create change and drive you towards a purpose. The emotional intelligence is tied to the life force (see previous blog on the Bio-energetic healing intelligence) because it directs the flow of the life force. For example, when you experience the emotion of happy, your energy moves upwards in your body. Conversely, when you are feeling sad, your energy will flow downwards and towards your feet. An emotion is designed to last minutes to hours, at most. It runs through your body so you can make rapid change. Imagine you are treated poorly by sometime and you get mad and angry. This emotional energy will allow you to say “Enough of this! I will not let this happen to me again!”. Then you will take the necessary steps and actions to keep this from happening again to you. When an emotion lasts longer than a few hours, it is no longer an emotion but a state. You can experience the emotion of anger or you can know someone who’s always angry and therefore in a state of anger. In order to sustain a state, you require specific behaviours, structures or posture of your body, actions and thoughts to create the state over and over again. Unlike the bio-energetic healing intelligence which is present in all living beings, the emotional intelligence is not. Some animals have this and other’s don’t. A snake may have a preliminary version of this intelligence to be able to react to it’s environment. People who have difficulty making changes in their life or taking action often don’t have enough emotional energy expression to do that. Have more questions about the emotional healing intelligence? Come to our monthly workshops to have your questions answered. 613-761-1600  The first intelligence is the bio-energetic or life force intelligence. Life force flows through you and allows you to effect your biochemistry in your body. Life force drives your body’s processes and makes sure that the proper chemical and physiological reactions take place are the correct time to ensure that you stay alive. Ie. heart beats at a certain rate, lungs expand and contract at specific intervals. Life force is important for activity in your cells, connective tissues and for organ function, growth and repair. Life force is present in all living things and it’s role is to keep your body functioning at baseline. It keeps your safe, secure and alive. When you are at rest, your life force is slow. Movement is what allows you to change your life force. With increased heart rate, respiration and body temperature i.e. exercise, your body’s biochemistry kicks into high gear. When your life force isn’t flowing properly, you feel lethargic and if it becomes stagnant, you start to feel ill. The lack of life force does not make you ill directly, your body will lack the ability to eliminate the toxins and move waste in and out, due to the lack of life force flow. When there is disease in the body, there is usually a problem with life force. When we first start off working together, the treatment sessions are usually focused on getting your life force moving properly again throughout your body. Have more questions about life force? 613-761-1600  I recently had the experience of throwing a temper tantrum which allowed me to observe myself and laugh. I was mowing the lawn and I have allergies to grass. This is often frustrating as I would mow then sneeze, continue mowing and sneezing, trying at the same time not to run over the lawn mower cord and then getting frustrated and trying to mow faster so I could stop sneezing sooner. I’m sure my neighbours find it comical to watch me when I cut the lawn. On this one occasion, the weather was hot outside and I was sweating. My sneezing was very frequent and I had managed on several occasions to get the cord tangled...and then I had it. I threw my arms in the air and exclaimed that I was never going to mow the lawn again. I stomped off into the house and got some water and came back out. After cooling down a bit, I continued to do the lawn and was left with a tangled mess of a cord. After finishing, I opened my garage door, put away the lawn mower and threw the tangled mess of a cord on the floor. I texted my husband and told him that there was a tangled cord on the garage floor when he got home and he was not to ask questions about it but to put it away... I wanted to throw the lawn mower over the fence and just get rid of it...too bad it’s quite heavy. After calming down (again), I was able to laugh at myself. I had just had a temper tantrum. I realised also that I was blaming an inanimate object for my situation. How is it that my lawn mower could be responsible for my allergies to grass? When you’re mind is in an overly emotional state, you don’t always make the best choices. Another lesson, I was looking for something (lawn mower) to blame for my situation. Do you ever find yourself reacting emotionally and then laughing? Comment below and let me know.  Have you ever quit something too early? Perhaps you started a new diet and were not seeing the results that you wanted as quickly as you wanted to, so you stopped. Maybe you started a business and quit before you were profitable. How do you know if it’s time to quit or rest? When you’re feeling overwhelmed, stressed out and feel like there’s too much on your plate, your decision making energy is at a low. When you’re trying to make a choice in regards to something important in your life i.e. job, relationships, career, health, etc. you want to considering being in an energy rich state. You will not reach the energy rich state you need to be in to make good decisions from a worn out place. The first thing you need to do is rest. Take time for yourself. Nap, sleep, take care of your health and well being. When you feel fully refreshed, then it’s time to decide if you should continue down your current path or if it’s time to quit. Far too often, we quit when the going gets tough when what we really need is to rest. In business, it is said that it takes 5 years in order to be profitable. It you kept quitting every time you got tired, you would never see the results of your labour. For dieting, it takes about a month to get into a routine and then there’s a matter of sustainability after that. When you first get started out in a venture, take into account that the usual time frame is to see results. Do not compare yourself with the best case scenario. Instead, prepare for the worst case and schedule time to take frequent rests in between. If you’re in a great state and you find it’s find to quit. Celebrate what you have learn in your journey and leave with grace. Want to learn more about yourself? Come to one of our monthly workshops. RSVP 613-761-1600  Patient Manifesto To my patients: Above all else, I want you to know that your body has the ability to heal. You will learn this during our treatments together, from attending workshops and through weekly articles. The lessons on healing are in how you connect with yourself and how you connect to others. I want you to engage with your body from a place of worthiness. You will learn that you are worthy of healing, love, belonging and joy. Healing will increase exponentially when you practice self compassion and embrace your imperfections. Together, we will practice courage by showing up, letting ourselves be seen and being open to new possibilities and perspectives. We honour vulnerability and know that it is the starting place for healing. We will share our stories of struggle and strength and there will always be room in our conversations for both. Together, we will practice compassion by first having compassion with our bodies; then with others. We will set and respect boundaries; we will honour showing up, hard work, hope and perseverance. You will learn accountability and respect for your body through making mistakes, falling then rising up and trying again. You will learn to observe how your body reacts to your thoughts and feelings. I want you to know the joy of your body, so together, we will practice gratitude and awareness. I want you to feel the wonder of your body, so together we will learn how to be vulnerable. When uncertainty and scarcity visit, you will want to run away and instead, choose to draw strength and comfort from the spirit that is a part of our everyday life. Together we will face fear, grief and pain. I will want to take away your pain, but instead I will sit with you and teach you how to feel it. We will laugh and learn and heal and create. We will always have permission to be ourselves with each other. No matter what, you will always belong here. As you begin your healing journey, the greatest advice I can give to you is to heal courageously, love with your whole heart and to dare greatly. I will not teach or show you anything perfectly, but I will do my very best, and will always hold sacred the gift of seeing you. Please comment with your thoughts and additions.  As you have experienced, it is possible to receive gentle touches along your spine and see huge changes in how you feel physically, emotionally and mentally. But how do you sustain those changes for longer and longer periods of time?
Here are 5 ways.
See you on the table! Have a great experience with our office? Write a testimonial!  We all know that moving and exercise is good for us. Most often, we think about the physical reasons for why this is. In this blog we will also explore the emotional, mental and spirit (purpose) benefits. Our bodies are designed to move! Since the caveman days it was ingrained into our nervous systems to run, hunt, climb, play, squat, etc. to get through the day. We were in contact states of motion. Now, most of us have sedentary jobs and would be lucky to fit in 5 days of exercise a week. Here are some reasons why movement is vital to our survival, according to my advanced workshop participants: Physical
Emotional
Mental
Spirit
Now that you’ve read some reasons for moving...get out there and move!!!  At the gym that I belong to, our training sessions are usually divided into different parts: warm up, structural, strength and cardio. This is to ensure that we development our bodies in a certain way. Since, my body is used to operating this way, I decided to attack my to-do list in the same manner. I break up my tasks into 1 hour chunks as follows: preparation, vision, structure and action. Depending on the task or action steps required, the preparation, vision and structure phases can be shorter or longer.
Preparation involves getting ready for the task. This is similar to the warm up before you exercise. At the gym, we start with light jogging. When working, it could mean getting settled at your computer and ready to start, turning off distractions like your cellphone, social media, gathering the equipment you will need, etc. Next is vision. I remind myself of my goals. How will this task bring me closer to my vision for what I want for my life? If it’s work for a file for one of my patients, I connect with my desire to help people. One of the key phrases that gets me focused is: everyone you take care of makes a difference in the world. This allows me to see the big picture. Keep your end goal for what you want to create for your life in the foreground of your mind. You want to do things that will move you towards your goals. This can take just a few seconds if you know your goals. Structure. Figure out the order of action steps you need to take to complete your task. Break it down so that you can complete a part of it during your hour. If your task is to write a book. You will not complete it in an hour. Figure out how many pages you can get through. Now it’s time to do. Do your task. Take action. After 60 mins, take a break. Give yourself a pat on the back and celebrate. You are one step closer to your goals. If you’ve been in front of your computer for the past hour, move and stretch. Got more time? Repeat the process agian. For more information on goal setting, come to our complimentary advanced workshops. |
AuthorDr. Amanda is a non-traditional chiropractor who focuses on Neuro-Optimization Chiropractic in Ottawa, Canada. 
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