Pearls of Wisdom - Pure & Powerful. Dr. Liz Anderson Peacock
I went to a Chiropractor: Dr. Judy Forrester in Calgary. She asked me about my history, and while performing an examination, checked my full spine. While palpating my neck, she inquired about sinus problems, allergies, stuffy nose, watery eyes and asked if I experienced any symptoms.
To make a long story short, I experienced severe environmental allergies as a child, endured ten years of allergy shots and multiple medications. I remember back to the age of five chewing Allerest, Dimetapp or Pyribenzamine before swallowing with a glass of water. I had an air purifier in my bedroom. My family resided on a beautiful fresh water lake in Barrie, Ontario. I was a very enthusiastic and active tomboy, and loved to swim and play outdoors. Suffering from allergies began every year in June and continued through the first frost.
So Dr. Judy’s question struck me as interesting. Since I had been taking the medications, I assumed all was well within. I appreciated the break from symptoms the meds provided so I could continue on with life. When she asked, I remember thinking, “What does my neck have to do with allergies?”
The Chiropractor asked me the cause of my allergies, and I made the standard reply, “Primarily dust, molds, dander and pollens.”
She asked, “Why?”
I replied, “Because my body is releasing too much histamine when exposed to allergens.”
She asked, “Why is your body making too much histamine?”
I gave a circular reply, “Because it is reacting to the pollens, dust, dander and mold.”
Realizing I was not understanding her point, she changed her line of questioning and asked, “If you and I are breathing the same air, wouldn’t we both be breathing air with the same pollens?”
I nodded a yes.
“If you and I are breathing the same pollens in the air, then shouldn’t we both be having the same response if the allergens were the true cause of allergies?”
I had no answer. I thought my symptoms were due to allergens and by taking drugs and allergy shots the problem would resolve. I never thought to ask why my body was doing something different than other people. I had never considered asking or looking at how other people may have been living their lives differently from me.
She then explained the modulating effect of the nervous system on the immune system, and how they communicate with one other. She said I likely had an insult in my neck at some point in my past, impacting my body’s ability to adapt to the environment. My body was responding, but not appropriately for the situation.
I went home and asked my mother about the possibility of a childhood trauma, and she noted that I experienced two black eyes during a car accident at around age two. No seatbelt laws in those days, and I was in the front seat. The collision caused me to fly out of the seat and hit the dashboard headfirst. I was checked-out by doctors and told I was fine, although my mother does not remember my neck being checked.
In consideration of Dr. Judy’s proposition of a childhood trauma causing insult to my neck, I thought back to my younger years. I used to see how many steps I could jump in-flight down the stairs in my house. Most of the time I landed on the pillows – the operative word being ‘most.’ Also, there were the bicycle wrecks: riding into the side of the house multiple times because I did not know how to use the brakes, or the time a stick was caught in the spokes of my front wheel and I fell on my face chipping a tooth. I played sports, fell out of trees, and so on; pick one incident, they were all physically traumatic.
To Change Others Worlds, First Change Yourself
I retuned to Dr. Judy’s office and had my first adjustment and my world changed. My low back was not nearly as important to me as resolving my allergies. Of course, at first I did not fully grasp the importance of rest and diet. I did not yet understand how they affected the chemistry within my body, particularly the excitability of my neuro-immune system. But, upon my first adjustment, my allergies improved immediately by about 75-80 percent. I stopped the drugs; I stopped the allergy shots, and felt like I had a new found life. As if someone removed earmuffs from my ears and the fog clouding my brain, I felt able to process information faster, and with greater clarity and integration.
The following fall semester I entered Chiropractic as a career.
Without A Plan
Upon graduating from Chiropractic school, I was without a plan. I fell back on some opportunities, but in retrospect I had not fully prepared myself for the work required to begin a practice. I thought, like many, I would graduate and people would just start pouring into my office for care. I thought the hard part (school) was over. What a wake up call.
I began what I referred to as my ‘default practice’ in a location and a city I was not fond of. A smarter person would have asked “Why?” Sometimes the things we need to learn are so apparent to others, but in the moment not to ourselves. Practice was slow, arduous and I was depressed. I had done well in school, yet in my first practice felt like an utter failure. I had never envisioned I would experience complications starting out. Everything seemed so difficult. I worked long hours and commuted a great distance for a number of months. I woke up at 4:30 AM and returned home by 9:30 PM. In retrospect, if I had a patient working those hours five and a half days a week including Saturday mornings, I would have said it was unsustainable over time.
When the winter came, I moved closer to the office. But still, I muscled through every moment. I was not congruent with what I advised to patients, not eating well nor living well. In the morning, I grabbed coffee and something with high sugar content to stimulate my energy. By the time I returned home in the evening, I was no longer hungry; if I ate it kept me awake later. I was in the vicious cycle of being too tired for physical activity, and made the clichéd excuse of ‘not having enough time’ to exercise. I was so unhappy and heading in a downward spiral.
At the end of one day, I remember sitting by my bookshelf seeing a piece of paper between two books. I pulled it out, an essay I wrote prior to school on why I wanted to become a Chiropractor. “To change lives, to make a difference, to be of service, to use my brain and physical skills.” My eyes welled-up in disappointed with myself. I felt deep sadness and embarrassment. I sat blaming everyone else, shifting the responsibility elsewhere, not yet accepting it as my own. I remember thinking I would just leave the profession and do something else; that it was not for me. I almost did. I knew something needed to change. Not long after that evening, I began to realize it was me.
There Are No Failures, Only Lessons
About the same time as my practice seemed to be failing, my intimate relationship with a colleague was failing. Neither of us was happy. I am sure I contributed mostly to our dismay, as I was so miserable I didn’t even want to be around myself. So I relished in my ‘pauvre moi’ attitude, repelling most everyone around me.
The pivotal decision to leave that practice, the relationship, my house, and to move was instrumental for my future growth. By no means was it easy, though. I remember packing and traveling ‘home’ to the town where I grew up, the same town my parents retired back to. My move back home was the sort of retreat with one’s tail between their legs, very humbling and with feelings of inadequacy. My parents showed nothing less than loving support, and had more confidence in me than I did in myself. All I knew, I was starting over. Moving forward on my own, I created a sink or swim situation: no one to rescue me, my outcome fully dependent upon me. Unknowingly at that time, I was creating a springboard for my future.
After my move, I reconnected with former Chiropractic classmates, who loved what they were doing in their practices. I asked them what they had done to help themselves in practice. They noted, “The Carter Program.” I asked what it entailed, and they said I just had to experience it.
I remember receiving the registration material and thinking I could not afford the fees. In deep thought, I recognized that what I was enduring had to be more painful than change. Knowing I did not want to repeat what I had preciously created, I needed to do something drastically different. Sometimes we change when the pain of the same becomes greater than the pain of change, and that was my primary motivator