Chiropractor or Energy Worker

It's fairly common for me, as I'm sure it is for most people, to be in a social situation and be asked the question, “what do you do”? For most, I'm sure, the answer is quick and easy — I'm a doctor, or a lawyer, or an accountant or a teacher. For me, there doesn't seem to be an uncomplicated answer. I used to tell people that I was a chiropractor but that would immediately place me in a box that doesn't even come close to defining what I do.

The standard answer these days might sound something like this: I practice Network Care. It's a system designed to help people develop strategies of self-awareness, self-correction and personal growth. It consists of the light touch method, or Network Spinal Analysis, which uses the spine as an access point into the nervous system, and Somato-Respiratory Integration, which helps people connect to the body's natural rhythms. Of course, this can tend to produce anything from a blank stare to a look of complete bewilderment.

I had the opportunity to spend some time with my good friend and colleague Dr. Wayne Leyshon this past weekend. He had traveled from Charlottesville, Virginia, to attend a Network training seminar held here in Atlanta. I always enjoy our conversations which tend to revolve around our experiences and observations of various topics related to wellness and spirituality. One of the things we spoke about this weekend was what it is we're really doing when it comes to the application of Network Care.

It was mentioned at this weekend's seminar, that men and women will tend to have gender-related postural distortions caused by social stigmas of our culture. These postures become life long patterns of protection, all due to fears of our natural expression. Men, in particular, will have inflexibility in the hips because it is generally not accepted for a man to swing his hips when he walks. Women, on the other hand, will tend to display a posture with shoulders rotated forward. It was postulated that as young girls mature and begin to develop breasts, they can become somewhat self-conscious and even embarrassed about the changes occurring in their bodies. This would then cause them to hold a slumped posture to downplay the pubescent change.

Wayne shared a workshop experience he had attended some time ago. The whole idea of the workshop was to help people shed the “personality protection” they display to hide their true selves. The theory being that how we act most of the time is just that, an act to hide who we really are because of the fear of not being accepted. Some might call this the ego. According to Wayne , when the workshop attendees were able to shed their protection it was impossible not to feel love for each of them.

If you think about it, we can't truly experience relationship with someone else if we're hiding who we really are. It would be, at least to some degree, fake. This thought is a little frightening to me. When people are in perpetual stress physiologically, and most all are, they are operating from fear and are unable to let go and express who they really are. (Unless of course, they've had a few drinks at the office Christmas party) The body becomes rigid and inflexible in this physiology of fear or protection. In fact, there is a direct relationship between inflexibility in the body and in life.

It's true that Network Care helps people to develop strategies of self-awareness, correction and stress reduction. Statistically, and in my experience, people in Network Care deal with stress better, make healthier choices and have an overall increase in wellness and quality of life. While these benefits are amazing in and of themselves, there is an important aspect of health or wholeness that is even more significant, one that is frequently overlooked and that precedes them as a result of Network Care – the ability to express one's true self and just to be who you really are. Of course people are going to make healthier choices and a have higher quality of life when they're free to express who they are.

Network has been described by many as transformational because it is an amazing tool that enables people to shed their armor and become more connected to their true selves. Now when Wayne and I are posed with the question of what it is that we are really doing, we can say this: We are helping people to express who they really are.