Empowering Children for Optimal Health

The Fall Bug is "Going Around"

This September I am hearing a lot of the talk around the table and in the mom's circles about this bug or that bug "going around."

Here's how these conversations usually begin:

"My son has been home so much this September. He keeps getting this stomach bug."

"My daughter had that twice, too."

"My son got Strep. He gets it every September."

The way we speak about these "bugs" contains a lack of awareness and a lack of power. We are not the victim of these arbitrary bugs running around and hitting a percentage of the population. These bugs are not hovering over us playing "duck duck, goose" and the the goose gets it. We have so much more to say over the condition of our health than we take credit for. As mothers, it is our gift to our children to empower them about their bodies and health rather than to take their healing power away with our words and actions. We empower our children when we teach them to listen to their bodies, to treat their bodies well, to trust their bodies, and to build their health.

What is "Being Healthy?"

One of the guiding principles of chiropractic and other traditional healing systems is the interconnection of all things. Each of us is an inseparable part of an infinite field of intelligence, and in this very moment, with every breath, we are exchanging millions of atoms with people all over the world. From this holistic perspective, health isn't merely "getting the bug" or "not getting the bug." Health is not merely having a symptom-free life. Health is a higher state of consciousness that allows adaptability, vitality, and joy to flow into our experience of the world.

We are healthy when we take in all life's stimulus and adapt this information for our own betterment, eliminating the stimulus that doesn't work for our system. This is very similar to the digestion process of the body. We are healthy when we take in what we need for our bodies' improvement and eliminate what we do not need. We are our most healthy in our jobs, families, and relationships, when we take in the things that our body, mind and spirit need in order to be nourished and grow, and simply let go of what is not helpful.

Why Do We Get Sick?

Illness can develop when there is a disruption EURo a blockage in the flow of energy and information in our bodymind. I deliberately use the word bodymind, as we tend to think of emotions as separate from our body's experience. But most of us KNOW this to not be true when we feel afraid or sad, or anxious. Our energy changes drastically. Our heart rate increases, our pupils dilate and our breathing changes. The body secretes hormones that change our muscle tone. Our bodies feel our feelings. Sickness can often occur when our bodymind experiences a disruption in the flow of intelligence. In the office I describe this experience as being similar to blowing a fuse. We have all had days when we have felt like we blew a fuse or two!

Symptoms and sickness are the body's "check engine light," letting us know that we need to stop, "pull over in the rest stop of life," and look within. Symptoms can allow us to become more aware of how our engine is working. Then, we can eliminate whatever is causing the blockages to our best expression, and repair ourselves, to bring the healthy flow of intelligence back to the body.

The intention of the founders of chiropractic was to help people find freedom from the burdens of ill health so that they could fulfill their deepest spiritual potential. This is true of other healing traditions such as Acupuncture, Ayurvedic Medicine, Reiki and Massage to name a few. These healing traditions emphasize our ability to influence our own health through our choices of food, people with whom we surround ourselves, our attitudes and beliefs. These ancient teachings repeatedly remind us that we are the only creatures on the planet (from our current understanding) who can CHANGE OUR BIOLOGY through our thoughts, feelings and intent.

What can we DO differently for our children?

Start by pretending that your relationship to your body and your child's to theirs responds to the same principles of all the relationship experts:

Listening

Honoring

Respect

Trust

Consistency

Awareness

Love

1. Listen to your body through quiet contemplation or meditation.

2. Respect its needs. Water, rest, good food, good people, good thoughts.

3. Focus on what is RIGHT with your body, not emphasizing what you see as wrong.

4. Trust your body. It can heal. Do you lead the relationship with Fear or with Trust?

As you apply these ideas and become more nurturing towards your body (and your child towards theirs), you will be giving them a life-long tool, putting them in charge of their own body, mind, heart and spirit. We do not want our young children to feel the victim to life's stresses and turn to drugs in their teens - so let's not set up the pattern for that now. Let's embody and teach trust and self reliance in little steps to build their confidence as they grow.

On days when they are over stimulated and surrounded by life's insanities, they can transcend through these tools you will have embedded in their system and create lives filled with self reliance, wellbeing, happiness, and love.

Dr. Pam Jarboe began her career working as an assistant for a chiropractor in 1986. She traveled into Harlem, NY with her chiropractor, adjusting children who were drug addicted, had AIDS or were abandoned as babies. Inspired by the many changes she witnessed in this practice, especially in children, she decided to attend Life Chiropractic University and graduated as a Doctor of Chiropractic in 1995.

Dr. Pam has trained extensively in newer, gentle low force and non manipulative techniques as well as traditional chiropractic. She has had the honor of adjusting brand new babies and hundred year old patients in her 15 years of practice. Dr. Pam runs Community Chiropractic Groton, Massachusetts, with her husband, Dr. Steve Jarboe.

Maintaining Optimal Health, Part II

Our thoughts impact our overall state of health.

Caroline Myss in her best seller book Anatomy of the Spirit writes about three principles in the field of Energy Medicine (also known as psychic energy).

The First Principle is that Our Biography becomes Biology

We are all living history books, as our lives unfold our biological health becomes a living, breathing biographical statement that conveys our strengths, weaknesses, hopes and fears. Every thought that you have ever had has traveled through your body and elicited a physiological response- good or bad.

For instance a thought of fear activates the sympathetic nervous system which now stimulates the release of the hormone adrenaline and cortisol (also called stress hormones). These hormones produce a complex cascade of physiological responses such as tightening of the anal and urinary sphincters, widening of the pupils (in order to allow more light to the back of the eyeball), dry mouth, rapid heartbeat etc.

In our daily lives, we go through varying levels of emotional responses c and depending on how we modulate our response to these stressors; this may have a cumulative effect on our bodies.

All our thoughts regardless of their content first enter our systems as energy. Those that carry emotional, mental, psychological or spiritual energy (charge) produce biological responses that are then stored in our cellular memory. In this way our biographies are woven into our biological systems gradually, slowly, but surely every day.

Research has actually shown the impact of chronic stress on the telomeres. The telomeres are located at the tip of the chromosomes. When they break off, they accelerate the aging process.

It sometimes takes a concerted effort to execute a mind shift in order to allow you to heal. Accepting the fact that every part of your life -from your physical history, relationships, every attitude and opinion that you hold or belief that you carry inside yourself, affects your biological makeup. We all possess negative emotions and to create disease, negative emotions are predominant even if at a subconscious level.

For instance if dealing with a chronic medical condition and your whole mindset is that of hopelessness then this only leads to further dis-ease. In the wellness continuum, it is not the absence of disease that makes a person healthy but how they choose through their thoughts and every day actions to move toward a higher level of wellness.

The second Principle: Personal Power is Necessary for Health

Power is at the root of all human existence and none of us is free from power issues. We may be trying to cope with feelings of inadequacy or we may be trying to maintain control over others in our personal relationships. It is noteworthy that there are instances where a person loses something that represents power to them such as a job, a spouse, lover or a child and then subsequently develops a disease.

Our relationship to power is at the core of our health. Our lives are structured around various power symbols such as money, status, beauty, our jobs etc. We need to be conscious of what we give our power to. Healing from any illness is facilitated by identifying what our power symbols are and our symbolic and physical relationship with those symbols.

The third Principle: You can help yourself heal

Here is the summary teaching of energy medicine:

"I am responsible for the creation of my health. I therefore participated, at some level in the creation of this illness. I can participate in the healing of this illness by healing myself, which means simultaneously healing my emotional, psychological, physical and spiritual being"

Unlike a cure which is a passive process of handing over one's authority to an outside force usually a physician as I outlined in the earlier part of this discourse, healing is an active and internal process that includes investigating one's attitudes, memories, and beliefs with the desire to release negative patterns that present one's full emotional and spiritual recovery.

By choosing to remain in a receptive attitude, optimal health and wellness can be achieved despite physical health challenges. In the wellness continuum this is truly moving toward a higher level of wellness.