Set Them Free
It's Catch and Release, not Collection
I once was a stage presenter at a large seminar.
It was an assembly of chiropractors, their staff, families and kids of over 800.
As I was talking, I was formulating my message and letting it come to me. Sure, I had notes, a slide deck, and a plan, but chose to let Innate guide me. I had to have enough trust for that.
The crowd was half paying attention to me and half chattering away after a break, hoping I’ll entertain them somehow. The children were running around in the back of the room and playing loudly. I began to speak louder. The adults (most of them anyway) began to settle down and listen to hear if the guy yelling on stage was saying anything better than their friends. Such is the ADHD world of the chiropractor. But the children did NOT stop talking. In fact they got louder as I got louder and their squeals were starting to irritate me. I began to talk over the audience like a tyrant. I was just about to yell directly at the children or to blurt out, “Will someone shut those kids the h*** up!” something happened.
The “A-ha!” moment occurred. I knew what my message was!
The adults seemed to sense this and began to “Shhhh!”the children. Some parents trotted over to handle them. Mind you, they were not being disrespectful; they were just being loud and expressing themselves. They were a product of their environment - and their environment was loud.
“No!” I said. “Don’t shush them! We’ll miss an important learning opportunity here. Pay attention and focus your energy here for a moment. Let the children do what they are doing. OBSERVE.”
I hunched over and began to lower my voice to a normal volume at first, then lowered it even more to almost a whisper. All eyes were on me; the ones in the back of the room wore strained expressions as they struggled to hear me and read my lips.
“In your office, do you serve yourself? Do you serve God? Do you serve the person on the table? Or perhaps you serve your family? Do you serve the Life Principle? Serve to pay the bills? What is your operating state in the office? Is it to ‘get these people through’? ‘Keep on schedule’? ‘Maximize their insurance’?
Are you the selfless, benevolent, humble servant? Are you the business owner who needs to make a profit because you have responsibilities? Do you say things that will nearly guarantee you’ll be liked or admired by your people? Do you say the thing that will strike fear in the person’s heart so that you become their new guru? Or are you creating a culture in your office that is unique to you? Or are you doing simply what you learned?
I am ALL these aspects at times. But one that brings me the most joy is when I am educating about the Life Principle or the ADIO principle, Innate, Educated, and Universal Intelligence. THAT’S when I am most excited. Even more so than the adjustment- and I love moving bones, believe me. How many of you have had moments when you were “on fire” and you spoke of Principle before you began adjusting? Did you more bones or less? For me, I move less bones. My adjustments take less time. They are better adjustments, too. My day moves by in a flash and I don’t want to leave.
Many of our colleagues have long forgotten something. And by extension, our schools and students. They have confused technique with Principle. They talk as if their technique is “better” or “more effective” than someone else’s. They have forgotten (or never knew) that the technique is the means to an end, not the end itself. They missed the forest because they were focused on 100, 200 or 300 trees per week.
I have found if the terrain I’m on does not match the map, I HAVE THE WRONG MAP.
Have you ever noticed the technique gurusor those who had monster practices are no longer on fire? When they are on fire, they aren’t talking about technique; they are talking about the expression of the Life Principle in their patient. They are talking about the miracles they witnessed and the pure joy and humbleness in telling the Truth…”
At this point, the children in the back of the room were quiet. They were playing with a teenager who acted as a perfect transition between the adults and the children. They were influenced by their environment. The children did not consciously become calmer or quieter. They did so naturally, without being told, without coercion or threat. How much am I a product of my environment?
As I continued, “What do you think would occur to a town of half a million people if ALL of us in this room moved in and opened ONE BIG Chiropractic office? Would we transform that town? Would it take decades or a hundred years? No, it would take weeks. We would be like a swarm of bees and everybody would know us and know our mission. Those that would seek to be set free would come in and bring others from surrounding towns. It would be a MOVEMENT. Why do hotels love it when chiropractors descend on it from all over the place? Because we have JUICE! We adjust the staff. We tell them the Story. Our mere presence sets them free. We keep each other charged. Have you noticed at places like this we tend to focus on the positive aspects of our lives? If crap is going on in our lives, others don’t really know it at gatherings like this. Perhaps that’s why we are so pumped after one of these weekends. We focus and attract the positive.
Many, many years ago as a first quarter student in the autumn of 1986, I listened to a man from Belgium speak. It was difficult to understand his accent, but I sensed he had something important for me that day.
He said, “If you don’t know what you’re doing wizz a babe-ee, but your intention eez right, you will find zee right area to correct. So just hold zat babe-ee and smell zat babe-ee, loooove zat babe-ee and realize zat you ‘ave been given a geeft and zat zis big Spirit in zis leetle Body is in your arms for a reason. And you deliver zat Love as best you know ‘ow and zat will be what zat babe-ee needs at zat time. It will be zee perfect adjoostment.”
The children learn to be products of their environment. Bruce Lipton, PhD, found that cloned stem cells in the presence of heart cells become heart cells; in the presence of kidney cells, become kidney cells. Intelligence, using Force on Matter equals action or expression. Principle #10 of our 33 Principles states: “The Function of Force - The function of force is to unite intelligence and matter.” Innate Intelligence uses Force upon Matter to express Itself. WE ARE EXPRESSIONS OF INNATE. We are spiritual beings expressing through matter (our bodies). Those children are powerful spiritual beings in smaller bodies. Perhaps they forgot they are BIG, Powerful Spirits who could move mountains with the breath from their nostrils. That’s all. We too, have chosen to forget. If we forget about an area, then we don’t have to be responsible for it, right? It is the environment in which they are placed that will largely determine how they turn out. It is the terrain, not the seed. The Germ Theory of disease was never true.
That crotchety, smelly, belligerent, dusty old fart that gives you a hard time every time he comes in- is a spiritual being who has forgotten his true nature. He will even deny this should you be so brazen to tell him. But is it the truth? IS IT THE TRUTH? Or am I just bullshitting here? Is it the truth that our real job, our ONLY job is to set people free? Free of the confines of their bodies; free of the restrictions of time and space; free of their smallness and their pettiness? Is it the truth or are we really the charlatans they say we are??
We have beautiful birds in our beautiful cages. I think my office was beautiful. It was an expression of me. But it was still a cage. A cage to which I voluntarily went everyday. My cage is not important. Your cage is just as nice and it is an expression of you. But your cage is not important. My cage is no better than yours. My people are beautiful, although I fail to see that all the time. Yours are too. They are like beautiful birds that we enjoy looking at and admiring. They bring us comfort and joy, knowing that they are ‘ours’ to look at. When my reception area is full and my tables are lit, I am comfortable and happy. [“Look at the people, aren’t they pretty?”] The birds will be there when we return. We’ll say “Hello birds, its nice to see you again.” At times I forget that my purpose is not to take care of people/birds in that cage, it is to set them free, not collect more of them.
Ask the next practice member or patient you see, “When will I be able to set you free?” “When will you be ready to fly on your own without me?” Have your life out there; you are not here to serve my needs. I am here to serve yours, and by serving your needs I shall never want for another thing. Come back to me when you must, but I absolve you of being indentured to me. There is no trickery here, so when will you be ready to fly?”
Of course they will give a look like this [the look of a bird]. Set them free anyway.
My universe is full of spinning tops called people. They spin around, focused on keeping themselves upright and neat; others are spinning around wobbly and bumping into everything in their environment. They come into my office wobbling and spinning, spinning and wobbling with no direction. On my good days I set them free. After an adjustment, they are no longer wobbling, but spinning stronger in the direction of their choosing. It is not up to me to choose the direction their spinning. It is not up to me to say where their spinning will take them but to make sure they are spinning as fast and as effortless as possible and to set them free. I am setting the birds free to follow their destiny. And in doing so I am fulfilling mine. And I am freeing myself.
We chiropractors are caretakers of the Life Principle. We do not own it. It was here before us and it will be here after we leave. We are stewards of it. We are the Keepers of the Flame and we have a task set before us. Many of the chiropractors are asleep. They need to be awakened. They became chiropractors for whatever reason, but they are CHIROPRACTORS. They unconsciously or subconsciously chose this profession because they wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. They are caught up in the world. They need to be reminded of how awesome they are; of how truly special they are and what unique individuals they are. Perhaps they took one too many technique seminars or one too many documentation seminars and it put them over the edge. They have become miserable and disgruntled and cynical. Their posts attack others not like them. They divide and cause unrest under the egoistic pandering of holding the line on truth. They need to be set free. They need to be reminded of who they are. They need to be at gatherings that remind them; attend and support schools that nourish them. I realize there are some that have D.C. behind their name who have infiltrated our Order and seek to cause its demise. We know who many of them are. I am not a police officer. I have no time to hunt down and eliminate the few. I am a chiropractor. Besides, “Germs will always be with us like fleas to the dog and sand to the beach” as the late great Dr. Fred Barge said. There will always be those low-toned individuals who have attached themselves to our great profession, and like the parasites they are, glean life and sustenance from us. But our life comes through us not from us, and we can give, love, serve and do out of Abundance. Those parasites serve a purpose as well. By being Principle-driven and by telling the truth, I become prosperous and flourish. When I become prosperous, my detractors can’t touch me. “When you’re on fire, everybody will come to watch you burn.” When I am “on fire” I am unstoppable and everything I say is golden. I can hit three pointers with my eyes closed. But when my Light is dimmed, when my vision is blurry, when I am introverted and focusing on my problems or my worries and I get caught up in my “stinkin thinkin”, then no technique, no procedure, no gimmick will work to remove the shackles I placed on myself.
We are Vitalists, not Mechanists. If we preach Vitalism but act and think from a Mechanistic viewpoint, it won’t work. It will not matter if we “work hard” or if we meditate 20 times a day. If I am doing these things to do anything other than express my own innate potential it will be folly. No matter how hard I paddle, I still can’t paddle up Niagara Falls. B.J. said, “Who can anchor to an unanchored mind?” This is as true today as it was back then.
I am a spinning top. But my spin is fast and strong. And hopefully, my spin is fueled by a Universal Principle, not by a body, a person, or this world. Remember who we are. We are Light workers. We are Stewards of the Principle; Keepers of the Flame. Go forth and set your people free....
Love, Danny