Gratitude

Loved the message at Church yesterday.  So I changed from writing an article about the cornucopia group and organic farms, to writing about gratitude.  But do not fear, the other sprout will be out later this week!

So I am grateful, and sometimes I realize I am not grateful enough.  I should be constantly so grateful that so many of you have signed up to listen to what I teach, and to see beyond me to a bigger picture of health and wellness.  One that is not my model, it is the model of chiropractic, and that which more aggressive chiropractors have adopted recently as we look at every aspect of wellness.  Not from treatment, but from pursuing health.  This is awesome, and it is because I am here thanks to a number of circumstances, and a series of interactions, events, and other happenings that have led me here.  I call it God led.

So, I SHOULD be so grateful, but you know how you can look beyond what is in front of you, and push for something more, and in that moment, though you are still grateful, you actually start to look ungrateful.  And you might even seem that way to yourself.  I know that I fit that description at times, when I should be grateful that you are listening at all, but I find myself feeling frustrated as if nobody is listening.  We had an awesome recipe night with 30+ people being fed on a Wednesday night in our office.  I was thankful and grateful and felt humbled by your desire to come out and and pick up some tips on healthy living.

I was disappointed the following Monday when i only had 4 people signed up for my Makeover class.  Silly now that i think about it.  Four people were willing to sit in a class the Monday before Thanksgiving, and be told that they should scrap all of their Thanksgiving plans!  Well, actually, I wasn’t going to say that at all, but I bet most of you thought that is what would happen!  So to have four people say yes to that, is awesome!  Should have been pure grateful.

You know, in our business we often think about all those people who stopped care at some point.  We wonder what happened.  We actually measure our worth (inappropriately) by who is still getting regular adjustments vs those that are not.  Granted, I have been in this for ten+ years, so I have learned to handle that pretty well.  But it is true, we will still think about all those people who quite care, and we don’t understand, and we feel like we have failed, and when we consider this greater mission to lead people away from medication and into natural healthcare, it seems as though the only answer would be if we had continually growing practices.  Non-stop growth.  Otherwise, we are never gaining, and always losing ground… it seems.

I heard a Maximized Living mentor talk about a similar situation.  He was at a party, where he had one patient (the person who threw the party) and a ton of used to be patients.  The host approached him afterwards because he could tell that the chiropractor had been very withdrawn.  He told the host that he felt awkward in a place with so many people who had quit care, who didn’t see value in what he did, and thus he felt like he really couldn’t communicate with them well.

The host responded, “That isn’t who was in that room.  That wasn’t a party full of quitters, that was a party full of people who have had their lives touched and changed by you.  A woman who still talks about her change from your care, even though she has been out of it for years.  An athlete who hadn’t been able to compete in years until seeing you, a young couple who has changed their direction with their family health and child rearing because of you.  A couple who no longer medicates their eldest son because of you.  There was nothing but people who respect what you do in that room.”

You know, that is a reality check in a big way.  I hope I take care of all of you until the last day that i practice.  But I know that won’t be true.  I do know, that chiropractic is better for life.  In a study a few years back, patients were compared for several health measures.  Consistently they found that those who had been adjusted the longest had the best measures of their health, as well as their own subjective assessment of their health.

I am grateful to be part of this healing profession that utilizes your own ability to heal, and nothing else.  But, I don’t write these for my health.  Is there something that you are grateful for, that you know you are grateful for, that you don’t necessarily express gratitude as loudly as you could?  I don’t want to be quiet when it comes to gratitude.  I want to be loud and obnoxious!  Thanks for listening just a little bit, and don’t ever feel judged by me over your health choices.  I don’t ever judge, I simply wish more for you… but I’ll be doing my best to be grateful the whole time!