Pearls of Wisdom - Pure & Powerful. Dr. Liz Anderson Peacock
do to move in the direction they wanted. We created baby steps for their success, and of course revisited and adjusted accordingly. This created freedom for me in practice, and placed the responsibility of health squarely on patients. In addition to locating and correcting areas of interference with their bodies, my job was to teach patients about the Principles and the supremacy of the nervous system, and support them in making changes.
Some were ready and some were not. Those that were, prepared and took action; those not ready were pretty much upfront about it. Some had no idea change was needed; but when presented, they became curious and asked questions.
In Life, To Each Their Own Path – Celebrate It
Every one of us is on a path. The illuminated path reveals itself in different ways. When an opportunity presents itself, we may or may not feel prepared. We may be focused on evolving in one area of our life and not in others. Transformation is not a linear process. There is a common tendency to revert back to old habits, falling into the comfortable and familiar. Neither good nor bad, it just is. I see my job as creating opportunity and providing inspiration for people to evoke positive change along their path.
Continue Being A Student In Life
For me, I know when I am not adapting; I feel restless and stagnant. In stagnation, I become complacent, a bit bored and dull. My inner light does not shine as brightly. I like to continually be learning and I love a challenge. I have encountered this restlessness a few times in my career, and it has one way or another caused upheavals as well as pleasant alterations.
When I developed a very successful practice in serving patients and enjoying them, I wondered if there was more ‘out there’ for me. I had some remarkable experiences with children teaching me yet another dimension of Chiropractic and healing. I considered entering (at that time) the only available Pediatric Diplomat program available, offered through the cooperation of Palmer and the ICA. Since its inception, Chiropractic has always served children and pregnant moms-to-be, though before the early Nineties not many formal diplomats or academic programs focused on mothers and children. Palmer and the ICA began their Pediatric Diplomat in 1994.
I flew from Toronto to Chicago thirty times over three years, and eventually earned the Diplomat in Chiropractic Pediatrics. With application of my newly learned knowledge to practical experiences with patients, I was intellectually stimulated. Although I had not planned it, my interest in pediatrics eventually opened doors to opportunities with numerous groups. Expanding my practice into the areas of prenatal and pediatric care shifted my practice into what I call a ‘generations practice.’ Multiple generations of families saw us as their primary healthcare provider.
I remember my eyes flooding with tears when a mother with a wonderful family reminisced on how their oldest daughter had poor confidence in school. The daughter’s teacher predicted she might not make it through high school, advising the family not to expect much from her. I wondered, what kind of person does that – thinking they can determine a child or any other human being’s potential from their limited point of view? From a Chiropractic perspective, her daughter’s upper cervical spine was very subluxated. The mother remembered my encouraging words for her daughter. I said, although I did not know her abilities, I did know she was put on this earth for a reason and she needed to find out what it was, then go for it. Further, I explained the interference in her upper neck could be choking her potential or clouding her from her purpose, confusing her. If the interference is removed, the ability of her body to function would improve. With the first adjustments, she remembers her life changing. Her academic marks improved, as did her self-esteem. She is a remarkable lady.
The same mother also had two other children, the youngest borne while she was under Chiropractic care throughout the pregnancy. One day in passing, the mother mentioned that her youngest said, “I know if anything ever happens and I can not get home, I can go to Dr. Liz for help.” I was deeply touched by a child’s trust in me.
In practice, there have been many days of eyes welling up with the stories people share. As Chiropractors, we care for the person with the body, rather than the other way around. Providing a safe environment within a community is large part of practice, and is reflected by patients’ trust in us.
Unconditionally Loving Our Patients
Sometimes we need to unconditionally love our patients when they do not love themselves. We need to give them hope and see their potential. This begins with unconditionally loving our self, and attending to our own needs outside the office in order to be able to serve within it. We need to appreciate all sides of ourselves – all shades, positives and negatives, and respect both. How could we help others and be fully present if they push our buttons for our own needs? People come to us and our responsibility is to be fully present for them. To be fully present we need to train ourselves to focus on being in the present-time whenever we are with another. This is central to what we do, as a moment feels like an eternity when someone is truly with us. In that moment, we see their whole being, and most importantly they sense our non-judgment and support.
When we establish an environment based on trust, patients feel safe enough to be vulnerable on many levels. They confide, they are respectful and become open to recommendations. Their trust is earned over time, and it only takes one moment to break. A lapse in our healing consciousness can irrevocably change the relationship and environment for healing for patients.
To borrow from a North American Arrowhead teaching, we need to be “Aware, Awake and Alert” in each moment. Through practice, our procedures become entrained to a point of unconscious competence and we do not have to think about them. Those procedures become an automatic extension of our services. When this occurs, we are free to “sense” what is going on around us: mastering our visual observation, listening to the energy behind the words aurally, and feeling the tone of the body through palpation. We tune in with our intuition for connecting with another person.
To illustrate, I remember as a student learning to palpate and adjust. I thought I was really hallucinating in my attempts to palpate the difference between muscle, fascia, joint-play and other anatomical landmarks such as TVP’s. By the time I was setting-up for an adjustment, my whole body was tense. My actions were totally in my head, mechanically thinking through each part. I was so tight there was nothing left for the adjustment, as all my muscles were already loaded.
The concept of intuitive actions applies to the performance of elite athletes. When instinctive awareness takes over, they truly become one with their activity or sport. If they become nervous, their body tenses and they lose their edge and form. Just as learning the skills of a sport, learning the mechanics and steps of Chiropractic was not easy. Through practice and experience palpating and adjusting came as second nature, without conscious thought. Akin to becoming an artist, it is difficult to breakdown and describe exactly how an adjustment is delivered: because when you think about it, you destroy it. Rather, when the adjustment is instinctive, the hands just know what to do.
When I mentor other students struggling with palpation and adjusting skills, I am reminded of what it was like for me as a student. Everyone learns differently, yet the consistency is that practice comes between performance. Learn the basics, then get out of your heads – stop thinking and begin being. Keep practicing, as practice leads to certainty and mastery.
Learning develops through four stages:
1.Unconscious incompetence – we do not know what we do not know.
2.Conscious incompetence – we know we do not know.
3.Conscious competence – we know what we know, but we have to think about it.
4.Unconscious Competence – we no longer have to think about it, we just do it.
Just about every learned process or set of skills goes through the stages: from learning to drive a car, to developing the skills of a trade. When daily procedures become an unconsciously competent habit, it frees our awareness to listen and observe the nuances.
This unconscious competence is core to the delivery of a masterful adjustment. The adjustment is our expression of Chiropractic. No other profession can deliver it as well as Chiropractors. The