I Smelled The Myths All Along!

One of the chiropractic magazines I receive is The Chiropractic Journal, a publication of the World Chiropractic Alliance. Usually I flip through professional magazines and throw them in the trash within about five minutes time because they are always the same ol' same ol'. But an article on page 25 of this month's issue caught my eye in a big way. Dr. Dennis Nikitow points out several myths that chiropractors have about building and running their practice. Oddly enough, I was ALWAYS wary about doctors who believed these myths right from the day I graduated from chiropractic school almost nine years ago. In fact, I never believed such myths, and I knew that doctors who did believe them were barking up the wrong tree. They never got MY resume, except for one that I was desperate enough to work for back in 2001, a job that lasted only four months. Anyway, here is a synopsis of the article and my commentary:

Now I went to a school that always taught that the more people you serve the better things are. That is true IF you can keep it affordable for people AND give them quality care. So the first myth is that "high volume means higher income." Or, you can always have a Personal Injury practice were you make about $10,000 a year per patient. Good luck trying to build such a practice in the presence of greedy insurance firms! Anyway, the doctor I worked for for only four months was a high-volume monger. One day she took care of a patient who was very familiar with my style of spinal adjusting. That patient later complained to me that the doctor, who was my boss, was terrible because she was only interested in doing a push here and a push there and then was off to see the next patient. I took my time, always, with each and every patient. I practiced that way when I was a student intern, and I still practice that way today.

This leads to the second myth that chiropractors believe -- that if they hire an associate doctor on commission, that doctor will build the practice for them. I've never seen this work, and a doctor who hires a doctor to be his lackey is severely lacking in integrity. Unfortunately, more than 90% of the "help wanted" ads I see on chiropractic job boards are just that -- doctors looking for other doctors to do the work for them. Hmmm. I wonder what their people skills are like. OR, maybe they are all audies like me?

Another myth that is mentioned in the article is that using physiotherapy will boost the income of the doctor. While physiotherapy is more geared to a Personal Injury type practice and not a wellness-based practice, insurance companies do tend to cut off the amount of care a person receives sooner when many therapies are performed. In reality, electrical and ultrasonic physiotherapy has never been, and never will be, my thing. Many of the patients I care for who have had physiotherapy done to them by other doctors tell me that they feel much better when I just give them what they need -- a chiropractic ADJUSTMENT. That is what chiropractic is all about, anyway. Besides, where is all the money going that is made from physiotherapy? Why it's going to pay the physical therapist, the higher bills, the equipment upkeep and all that needless overhead. It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.

Still another myth is that different types of instrumentation could be used to monitor a patient's progress instead of x-rays. First of all, I only x-ray a patient if they absolutely need to be x-rayed, for example if they were just in an accident or if I sense something is unusual in their exam findings. People may say, "Well I feel no different," and you may argue that they are better because some pretty, colorful graph shows a change. Does the patient really feel better? Does the patient really FUNCTION better? Do they notice the changes, even slightly? These are the results I am interested in.

In the end, I am in practice for myself because I tend to speak my mind about these things and not buy into the myths. I also will not work for another doctor who exemplifies the myths. So until I find enough people who know that I am different, I guess I'll keep struggling in my difference.

"Chiropractic Medicine" -- What On Earth???

Now I have been in the healthcare industry for over 26 years now, and I have never heard of a branch of medicine called "chiropractic". Yet, there are some chiropractors, some chiropractic schools, and even at least one state board of chiropractic, that insists that such a branch exists. Thus, they invented a degree called "Doctor of Chiropractic Medicine". No wonder why so many medical doctors are still NOT warmed up to chiropractic as a whole. I certainly wouldn't want to go to a medical doctor who calls himself a Doctor of Medical Chiropractic! To me, calling yourself a Doctor of Chiropractic Medicine sounds just as far fetched, and even silly, as calling yourself a Doctor of Basketweaving Medicine.

I guess it's an ego thing. For those chiropractic doctors who feel that they need to be accepted by the medical profession, because they have this illusion that they are not accepted, they need to include the rather antonymous word "medicine" to their title. I don't hear dentists calling themselves "Doctors of Dental Medicine". They are DENTISTS. And, for goodness sake, chiropractors are CHIROPRACTORS. I practice chiropractIC. I don't practice any sort of medicine in any way, shape, or form. This rather obscene play on words is one of the reasons why, even when asked, I never wanted to practice in the state of Florida. I could never fathom calling myself a "Doctor of Chiropractic Medicine" when I, in fact, do not practice medicine!

But I am not the first to have such a rant on this topic. The first, as far as I know, was Dr. Patrick Gentempo, a chiropractOR. He is the president and one of the founders of the Chiropractic Leadership Alliance. I am right on par with him when he says that calling chiropractic "chiropractic medicine" is ridiculous. Medicine is the practice of administering substances and therapies, including surgery, for the treatment of disease and injury. Chiropractic is the practice of correcting, by hand alone, bone misalignments (subluxations) that impinge upon the nerve system, which is the master regulator of all body organs and functions. Man, medicine and chiropractic certainly sound like two very different things to me!

So, it's rather interesting, and not in a positive way, to hear some chiropractic doctors themselves refer to themselves as "Doctors of Chiropractic Medicine." Now I can understand this happening in the general public. After all, medicine is the dominant healthcare paradigm here in the U.S., and therefore people may make that mistake. I forgive them, and then I correct them. But for an actual DOCTOR to make this mistake? Hmmm. I am certainly NOT going to forgive them!

To 501(c)(3) Or Not To 501(c)(3)

I don't know if this is an audie thing or if I'm just not looking in the right place. I have contacted TONS of grant-giving foundations and community organizations in the past few weeks. But absolutely none of them will even consider you unless you have 501(c)(3) status. When I tell them that we are a church and churches are exempt from having to be 501(c)(3) organizations (in fact, most churches are NOT 501(c)(3) organizations), then they don't know what to say and leave you hanging in limbo without a definitive answer. Has anyone else experienced this? It's quite frustrating, to say the least. Thusly, the whole idea of getting the church off the ground remains just that -- an idea.

So, what are some pieces of advice that have been given to me over the past couple months. One is to simply become a 501(c)(3) organization and the doors will open up. If I had $500 sitting around somewhere and six months to sit around and do nothing, this would be quite do-able. Another is to hire a fiscal agent. Every grant guideline I ever read says that they don't give money to organizations that have a fiscal agent. Another piece of advice was to get a grant writer who will do everything on commission. It is frowned upon, and may even be illegal, for nonprofit organizations to do this. So, can you understand why when you throw these obstacles at somebody who is already used to banging their head against a wall they end up doing it even more?

In the end, my primary source of support may be from the congregation that I eventually put together. To do that, I will have to come up with some creative ways of advertising the church and its ministries. I have had absolute zero luck with advertising the church on Craigslist. Even the two or three people that did answer me on Craigslist ended up being less than desirable people. I will try other methods from now on instead of Craigslist. Currently I am putting together a mailing list of all of the homeless shelters and food banks in an 8-county area of the greater metro Twin Cities. I will let them know about the free wellness center, at least. I know that in some cases, though, I am basically trying to reinvent the wheel because some of these places are already affiliated with a free wellness center or a nurse practitioner who takes care of their guests.

Now I could rewrite this entire entry in such a way that I look at the glass as half full. I am not doing that because I am revealing, through blatant honesty, the FIRST impressions that go through my mind, before I start coming up with positive ways to look at things. In the end, my head will have hurt anyway because it's been bouncing off the wall AGAIN. I know that when you are reading what I write, you are saying to yourself, "Wow, he has such great ideas," and then you go back to doing whatever you are working on without flinching. That's what I mean when I said in a previous post that people only see Mickey Mouse. You probably just did it yourself. It is the person who BELIEVES in the ministries I am proposing and WANTS to see them work out that will act and BECOME INVOLVED. The rest will just say, "How nice," and will continue on their way.

Life as an audie is tough, isn't it. I wonder how I would feel about these obstacles if I were neurotypical. Hmm.

Ripping Pages

I hope you have either enjoyed or hated, very much, my first few posts in this blog. I guess you could entitle what you have seen so far "My Struggle." (I will not translate that title into German, thank you.) While much of what this blog will be about in time to come is different, I wanted to share with you a bit of my history, including my state of mind. Afore October 3, 1998, I was not a very likeable person. It was easy to see my struggle. It was written on my face. What is written in words here is pretty much what came out of my mouth, moreso directed at myself in anger. But what happened on October 3, 1998 changed my life forever. A person who I mentioned in this blog before, in a brutally honest way, gave me a "second chance," so to speak. While I was boiling with inner rage over the fact that I just felt so uncomfortable in this world, Muktananda came along and burned all that away in a split second. The event was known as shaktipat. Shaktipat is the spiritual equivalent of a person who was blind since birth suddenly being able to see. I will not elaborate on the shaktipat experience here because I have written volumes, and continue to write about my experiences with this Spiritual Awakening, in an actual book I am writing.

Shaktipat does not change the human-ness of a person. It DOES change their awareness of who they are and why they are here. That alone makes a person much better at what they do and what they have to share with the world. For example, at that point in time, I was a chiropractic intern, taking care of patients in the clinic setting. Before shaktipat, I was poking around at people's spines, trying to find which bone I had to push on. After shaktipat, I just went right to the subluxation that needed correcting without even a second guess. Even the doctors who were supervising me were amazed at my insight. Things were suddenly THAT different! But like I said, I'm not going to go on and on about it here since such writings exist elsewhere. I will say that it has truly made a difference. That is why I KNOW, and it's not just a "feeling," that I have a lot to offer the world as far as being a healing practitioner goes.

Now, enter Minnesota -- the state that is the LEAST friendly toward practitioners of "alternative medicine". (Although, I must say that what I do has no semblance to "medicine" at all.) Suddenly everything has become a struggle. And, after 6-1/2 years of being here, it still is. Thus, I rely on my inner awakening, the awareness of the shaktipat gift, to keep that smile on my face and to keep going forward with what I am doing. Some people would say that since I met this Guru who gave me such a gift I should have the world on a string. Well, that's not the way a true Guru works, and it's certainly not the was shaktipat works either. Like I said, it doesn't change the fact that you are human and have struggles. If it did, it would be like God herself taking away her greatest gift to humankind -- free will.

Anyway, why did I entitle this entry "Ripping Pages"? It's because THAT is what the shaktipat experience did for me. It ripped away all the pages of self-hate and illusionary smallness that WOULD have existed to this day. It changed my life forever. This is why, as a healing practitioner, I also deal with that realm of existence -- the spirit realm itself. No, I don't call on "spirit guides" and angels when I have you on my table. That's pretty far-fetched, and I would avoid any "healer" who does that. I would also avoid self-proclaimed "healers" who do not have any formal training BECAUSE they turn healing into some blind three-ring-circus. I DO, because of my extensive training with THE unadulterated form of Reiki, with my eight years of chiropractic education, with my 26 years of healthcare experience, and with my extensive experiences with Saivite and Vedanta philosophies, have a lot to offer this world. Now it's time to fill up my clinic despite all odds.

The Topic Of Paranormal Interests

About a year ago at this time, I created a website devoted completely to the performing of distance healing involving the resolving of conflicts involving paranormal phenomena. Nowadays, a much shorter version of that page exists, and I don't throw away money to advertise it anymore. You can view the new page at http://www.universalpeace.vze.com/. It would be my greatest joy to make a career of being involved in dealing with the paranormal. However, what I want to do does not exist on any viable level. There are parapsychologists and "ghost hunters" who scientifically investigate paranormal phenomena, and then there are groups of people who are simply interested in discussing the topic. What I do is VERY much different, and does not involve either of these extremes. Instead of studying the paranormal, and instead of being an aloof fan of it, I help people to resolve any conflicts they may have with it.

So how does that work? If people have a ghost in their house, I don't say, "Ooh, aah, how neat!" Nor do I offer to come into your home with spectrometers and special cameras to study what's happening. I actually ELIMINATE the ghosts all together, using energy healing. I HATE, and I do mean "hate", when TV shows glorify hauntings, which are in reality spirits who are trapped in a realm they cannot escape. I also hate the investigators who bilk thousands of dollars from people in order to rationally explain something that cannot be rationally explained. Enter one Rev. Dr. Patrick V. Suglia who, for only $150, will rid the phenomenon all together that is causing you grief. Now, wouldn't that be a fair price to pay to find peace with the universe? Why monkey around with it!

So, how many ghosts have I chased? Well let's see. I started doing this in 1998. Since that time I chased, quite successfully I must say, at least three ghosts. I also performed one successful exorcism. (The exorcism was NOT a very pretty situation, and, although I would certainly do them if called to, I do not look forward to having to do one again.) Also, I have been very successful at making contact with loved ones who have crossed over, not for myself but for clients who were in much need of closure. These are not things I do "for fun". They are serious matters, and they should be treated as such. And, one thing I DO NOT advertise myself as is a "psychic". That I am not. I am a HEALER, one that uses energy modalities to create universal peace.

This blog entry may be considered a self-advertisement. So be it. But I needed to clear the record. When people see on the church website that I perform "paranormal and metaphysical services", they need to know what this means. This blog post explains that in more detail. It also shakes a finger at those who go too far to the left and to the right on the topic. To the right I say stop wasting time, money, and energy by making a "scientific study" of this stuff. To the left, I say stop thinking that it's so neat that you lose your head in the clouds over it. It is neither. It is a serious matter. And people need healing because of it. That's where I come in. If you want to know more, check out my website which I mentioned earlier in this post.

Happy New Year! Really?

It is just so fascinating to think of how one decision made by a Catholic Pope in the year 1582 changed the course of time itself. Now we combine the supposed year that Jesus the Christian Lord with astronomical phenomena, namely how many times this rock we live on revolves around its sun, to determine all sorts of thing. Based on the decision made by Pope Gregory the 13th, it is now decreed that a person isn't old enough to drink alcohol until the Earth flew around the sun 21 times. Perhaps such a logic would sound really ridiculous to a space alien who would come here to study life on this planet? But what is time, anyway? It is a measure by which events are sequenced. That's really about all it is. And the measure is based on what people over the ages felt what scientific occurrences it should be based on.

Now what if we measured time based on how many times the moon revolves around the Earth? That's how the Roman calendar worked, which was used about 2,762 years ago. (Is that 2,762 Gregorian calendar years?) What then? Well, now we reach the age of 21 years five whole Gregorian years earlier. So, in a sense, a person would then be old enough to start drinking alcohol at the age of 16, which was actually 21 then. But as time went on over the centuries, it was somehow determined that other universal movements should determine how mature a person is. This seems to be the most logical reason why we feel a seven year old child is being, well, childish when he or she may have a brilliant idea, while a forty year old with a PhD would be taken quite a bit more seriously, even if his idea isn't quite so plausible.

This is why I measure a person's value not by the Earth's movement but by the fact that they are a PERSON. What novel concept. Children can offer amazing, and sometimes downright extraordinarily creative, insights into how the world can be a better place. It is written in the Christian gospels that Jesus once said, "Unless we become like children, we cannot enter the Kingdom Of Heaven." My interpretation of this is thus: unless we rid ourselves of our false notions, our blindness, our ego, our "adult" logic, and become simplistic, we will never experience true joy and our connectivity to The Divine.

Now it's almost 4 in the morning and I'm tired of thinking. It's time for me to go to bed. After all, I have to rest up in order to enjoy the first day of the next trip around the sun.

Frankness

One of the reasons I created this blog was to be up front with people. Even if a person is considered a leader or a pious person, there is one thing that the general public usually forgets -- the fact that they are human. To err is human, and it is also human to have the same concerns, complaints, aches, pains, grumbles, gripes, emotional swings, foibles, ticks, habits, and bathroom habits as a "normal" human being. Therefore, to look at someone's profile, such as mine, and think that this person has everything in order is to be mistaken.

Let's look at some great leaders throughout history and see what I mean. Jesus, the Christian Lord, is esteemed to be THE incarnation of God himself, yet totally human. So, if he was totally human, did he get angry? You betcha. It even says so in the gospels. Did he feel pain? That's certainly well documented. Was he married, and did he have children? The latest writings found in the Dead Sea Scrolls seem to indicate that. So, this must also mean that he suffered from the flu now and then, got upset stomachs when he ate too much, and may have even suffered from allergies. Well, he WAS human, right?

How about another example. The late great Swami Muktananda of Ganeshpuri, India. Truly an enlightened being he was, a Siddha. He could translocate, performed great healings, and awakened people's Kundalini energy. This same person also had to have a pacemaker put in him to keep him alive. This same person also had a terrible temper and would chastise people in public. This same person was also accused of being sexually indecent on some occasions. Well, he WAS human, right?

Soooo, next time you look at a public profile and think they are above all things human, think again. They are JUST as likely to be as human as YOU. Therefore, as you read my blog posts, don't start feeling nauseated by what I have to say. After all, not only am I human too. I am also autistic.