Welcome to the Spring 2023 issue.
We often talk about the wisdom in the body. We recognize that there is an intelligence that made us and can therefore heal us. We see this intelligence acting every day, whenever we observe a scab forming to heal a cut, or a detox reaction to discharge a toxic substance. The body, we know well, expresses immense intelligence.
Yet in the case of disease symptoms when injury or intoxication can be ruled out, the idea of “life expressing intelligence” often gets challenged or dismissed. It would seem the body expresses intelligence sometimes, while other times it expresses the opposite—dysfunction. Or so we thought... In truth, organic diseases (those excluding injury or poisoning) encode an intelligent meaning that we are just beginning to understand for the first time in history. Chiropractic care offered an important recognition of the underlying mechanism through the idea of “subluxations” understood to precede common and chronic symptoms. In 1980, science achieved a major advancement in this direction when we discovered visible subluxations in the brain.
So what is a “brain subluxation,” and how does it affirm a new science of healing? The brain subluxation is a visibly spherical formation—or lesion--overtop an area of the brain responsible for the functionality of an organ of the body. And here’s the ultimate significance—these brain formations arise in synchrony with an individual’s life experience, namely their experience of “conflict shocks.” In other words, the brain lesion appears simultaneously with a unique stress or challenge in life, and it then disappears, or dissolves from the brain, when that challenge resolves in life.
The purpose of the lesion (or subluxation) in the brain is to facilitate an intelligent adaptation in the corresponding organ of the body. When the conflict (stress) resolves, the brain-subluxation dissolves with fluid edema in that area, while the organ enters a similar fluid environment to begin reversing the previous cellular adaptations. This is when the organ manifests its “inflammatory condition.” It’s similar to how muscles become inflamed after a high-stress workout. The organ’s inflammatory condition is a restoration or healing process after the unique life-stress is over, after the particular brain-organ augmented response shifts into a healing phase.
The body (or subconscious) works in harmonious relation to our environment and emotional experiences. This is an ancient, self-evident truth. Yet it has reached a new, revolutionary significance with the discovery of these brain subluxations which elucidate a new science of this mind-body connection. This new science is firmly situated in chiropractic philosophy—it is about improving a human being’s comprehensibility of stress and life, with a focus on the adaptability of the nervous system. And when a symptom appears, we can now recognize how it is an intelligent and meaningful healing expression of a precise adaptation, which was interwoven into the unique experiences and life journey of the individual.
This issue explores avenues for discovering the “how” by which families can support their journey own through pregnancy, birth and beyond. It explores the ways men can step into their strength and resolve. In many ways, this issue is a gift to fathers.
Pathways Connect Resource Guide Topics