I was at a point in my career where everything was so great. I had been practicing for 14 years and I loved helping my patients. I loved running my business. But I was also spinning all the plates and trying to keep my head above water. I was a mom, a wife, chiropractor and a business owner. And not always in that order. It left little time for me. Despite what people saw, or maybe what I allowed them to see, I was trying to keep it all together. Everything was fine.

And then it happened.

I was moving a patient on the table one day and I had instant, severe lowback and hip pain. Shit! I knew proper biomechanics and I knew I shouldn’t be moving patients - I should have them move. But, like any other day, I was in the habit of moving patients to set them up properly for adjustments.

My pain was so severe, I was sure I had done serious damage.

I had all the imaging and tests; there must have been something physically wrong. I was convinced I had injured a disc based on the mechanism of injury and the symptoms. But imaging and tests told me otherwise.

Xrays – Normal

Bloodwork – Great health

MRI – Normal

I made appointments with Specialists – we formulated a solid treatment plan for recovery and rehab – after all, this was a simple musculoskeletal injury and should have full recovery with treatment and rehab.

Except it didn’t.

Two months after my injury I was “good enough” to go back to work; I also needed to go back, I was self-employed and to take 2 months off was a huge hit to my income.

I struggled. I modified how I treated. I was only able to treat patients two half days a week. I was stretched physically, emotionally, and financially.

In the back of my mind all I could think about was why am I not better. I’ve done all the things. How many of my patients went through the same thing in their healing journey? I felt like an imposter – if I can’t “fix” myself, how was I supposed to heal others?

And then, in perfect timing, I remembered one my coaches in my self-development course talked about healing in a different way. That physical pain can actually have an underlying root emotional cause.

I was skeptical at first – this was so far from my model of reality and what I had learned earning my fancy degree as a Doctor of Chiropractic. In my eight years of schooling and hundreds of hours of continuing education, an emotional cause of physical pain was never addressed.

But at my core, I have always believed and had evidence that the body can heal itself.

I had exhausted all my treatment and rehab options and I was desperate to feel better. What was there to lose by exploring this avenue? I felt the call to start working with Jake.

Jake taught me our symptoms have a biological purpose and when we discover the root emotional cause we can RESOLVE the symptoms. Our brains are wired to keep us safe and our symptoms serve a purpose based our interpretation of the conflict we experienced.

In one session with Jake, we were able to uncover the emotional cause of my physical symptoms.  It was buried so deep in my subconscious mind, I had no idea how it was affecting me. In this single session, I noticed an immediate change in my symptoms – my pain and tension was gone and my range of motion was normal. How could this happen just from uncovering an event from years ago I thought I had processed and forgotten about!?

Working with Jake allowed me to see the emotional component to my physical symptoms; my brain was just trying to keep me safe.

I was mind-blown.

And - even crazier – I have never actually met Jake in person. We were able to efficiently and effectively uncover this while on opposite sides of the planet.

I FINALLY felt better and was able to get back to work.

But something else shifted in me. As I was working, I couldn’t help but think – how is it no one else is doing this work? The Mind-body connection is often ignored and dismissed in western medicine – pushed aside as “woo”.

When I was in practice, I loved connecting with people. I always felt my treatment times were way too short, which was often evident in me being chronically behind - this added to my already heightened state of stress. But really, I wanted to spend more time with people, to understand and hear them, and make sure their needs were being addressed.

As I reflected, I realized how out of alignment I actually was with my career. I knew I was a kick-ass chiropractor. I knew I helped clients get results. I know chiropractic and hands-on treatment are SO necessary and needed. But being told how to practice and connect with my people just didn’t feel right anymore. Held hostage by insurance companies dictating how much they would pay for treatment didn’t allow for the TIME I need to spend with people. It was causing me to over-extend and eventually burn-out.

AND - not being able to practice, share, and teach everything I learned since my hard-stop of low-back pain just wasn’t an option anymore.

Doing this work, I was able to understand what triggered my symptoms, allowing me to understand pain isn’t always straightforward; stress and emotional stuff can cause REAL pain in our bodies. And STRESS plays a huge role in healing -  if our bodies and minds are always in a constant sympathetic state -  fight, flight, or freeze  - which is how our culture rolls – how is our subconscious supposed to feel safe enough to heal?

Because of this work, I was able to see and fully understand that our bodies and brains are NOT working against us. Our brain is just trying to keep us safe. Isn’t that fascinating?! Our brain is just trying to keep us safe. It likes predictability and the known. And so much is driven by our subconscious mind – the reptilian part of our brain that we don’t even know is running the show - in order to keep us safe.

I can now look back at this injury as one of my biggest blessings. It allowed me to dig deeper and understand the mind-body connection on a different level. It allowed me to understand myself on a deeper level. It allowed me to slow down, to heal; to understand what I truly want in life. And, without knowing it at the time, it allowed the permission to do so. Permission I would have never given myself if I wasn’t forced to stop.

It also allowed me to see I can help people in a different way; a way that feels so aligned. Giving people the tools so they can finally understand and resolve their symptoms; and what’s even more powerful, to understand themselves.

Alignment. It feels so good.

Our bodies (and Minds) are not broken. We don’t need fixing. We can heal from the inside out. We just need the knowledge, tools, and guidance to do so.