131 - The Philosophy of Chiropractic: Why Patients Need to Understand Their Care

[00:00:00] I think there's an element of more ease in your system when you let the philosophy actually mean something to you because you realize I'm not in control and that's actually a good thing. And I can honor that there's an intelligence in all things, all the time, giving it life. And so, you know, that's the second principle in chiropractic is that the chiropractic meaning is to look for life and intelligence through matter, right?

[00:00:27] So like this reverence for life, and it doesn't say this control of life, is like what we're about as chiropractors. Hello and welcome to Build Your Remarkable Practice podcast. This podcast is dedicated to chiropractors who are in the seasons of launching and building their practice.

[00:00:55] Join myself, Dr. Lona, and my co-host, Dr. Bobby, as we have conversations each week as it relates to building the practice of your dreams. And remember, you can have a remarkable practice as part of a remarkable life, not instead of one. We are here to lead you on the way. All right. Welcome back to your Build Your Remarkable Practice podcast. I am back on today with Dr. Andrew Alekna from Down Under.

[00:01:24] And we are continuing the conversation we've had for the last two weeks. So if you haven't listened in, go back. We're talking about the four legs, not three legs, the four legs, which is what, Andrew? What are those four legs we're talking about? Well, last week we talked about the art of chiropractic, so the actual adjusting the nuts and bolts of taking care of patients, how we do it. This week we're talking about the philosophy, another favorite.

[00:01:51] And then, I don't know, I don't know what's going to happen next week. We just, we're keeping you guys in the wind, just keeping you on your toes. So, but this week, we're all in on philosophy. Yes. Which is my favorite of the four to talk about, I think. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. The philosophy is one of those things that, to me, keeps it spicy, keeps it fun, keeps it interesting. It's really like thinking about like, okay, but why?

[00:02:20] Or how does this worldview that we take as chiropractors, how much depth there is to it? But so that, for me, the philosophy is where I would say I fell in love with chiropractic was through the philosophy. Yeah, because it's like, and this is one thing that I definitely talk about with my coaching clients, especially the build ones that, you know, if you're a young doc that's just kind of come out of uni and you're like, I don't know how to be a chiropractor.

[00:02:48] You need to first be clear between here before you can be clear here with doing what we're doing. And yeah, I just, I was thinking about it today. You know where, maybe you guys don't get this one in the States, but like we get, you know, these memes in Australia where it's like me, how do I pay my taxes? Public school, shut up and play the recorder.

[00:03:12] You know, like you just get taught so much useless stuff in high school and primary school that just doesn't apply to life. And then I don't want to say that you get taught a bunch of useless stuff in chiropractic school, but I did have to sit through a bunch of vertebrae anatomy units at Murdoch, which was great if I wanted to learn how field mice regulate their body temperature and that kind of stuff. And I'm like, and I was thinking about it today and I was like, why is there no meaningful business unit?

[00:03:41] Why is there not more art, more like hands-on, this is how we adjust. Why was there one watered down philosophy unit in first year? And, you know, the science that we did was, and the program that I went through was pretty science-y, pretty evidence-based. There wasn't really any chiropractic science. Do you know what I mean? Evidence of what? You know, evidence of what?

[00:04:04] Like there was nothing from, you know, some of the lead researchers now, like we were discussing like Heidi Harvick and, you know, you just have just had a phenomenal paper put through with a bunch of researchers. There's nothing like that hitting university.

[00:04:20] That is interesting too, because so much of what we are having to take in the chiropractic education, if it was taught with the lens of philosophy, when you're learning the neurology or you're learning the biology, there was an element where the professor taught how from a philosophical lens, when we look at the intelligence that is present in the biology, right?

[00:04:46] That would be a way where we could marry in not just this very segmented approach to learning through chiropractic school. Instead, the philosophy could be wove through the art. The philosophy could be wove through the science. And the philosophy, I dare say, even can be wove through your business, because there is an element of our philosophy that is all about how life unfolds and your business is part of your life.

[00:05:14] And so, I don't know, to me, the philosophy is like the blanket that should cover it all. And when you open up, I think, to trying to grasp, because I think that's the hard part, is you have to wrestle with the philosophy.

[00:05:30] And part of the challenge of it is it's taking these ideas, whether we're talking about the 33 principles or going back to some of like, you know, Didi's writings and BJ's writings, and you wrestle with what did they mean when they used this word choice here?

[00:05:46] Right? Like, what does that mean? And, you know, in the principles, I think they're so deep that it's tough sometimes to, you can't just look at them from a surface level and get a lot from them, which is why I think people avoid it, is because you do have to do some wrestling with it.

[00:06:08] Well, it's polarizing, right? Like, and it's, and our profession is in a state when it's where we are kind of polarized. And, and I think that that's kind of crazy, because I, one of my business philosophies is like, if you're helping people, and you're adding value, and they're showing up, and they're, you know, paying, and they're feeling better than I love what you do. Even if it's a bit different to what I do.

[00:06:34] Yes, I think there's a lot to that. But also, at the same time, I can get behind that a lot of things we add to chiropractic is not really chiropractic. And that's where, yes, and that's where I think, even the approach, like two chiropractors could look like they're doing the same thing, but have very different understandings of the philosophy and why they're doing what they're doing.

[00:07:00] Right? Yeah, that's the philosophy pieces. Like I may, if I'm someone who is more mechanistic, I may be doing the adjustment. And in my mind, I'm doing it to eliminate their back pain. It's a treatment for back pain. Versus if I have a deeper philosophy, understand like their innate intelligence is on the job. I am educatedly putting a force into this body where I believe through my educated learning and my intuition where I should best place my hands.

[00:07:30] And then it's a connection between my innate and their innate and their innate is on the job. I don't do the healing. Right?

[00:07:37] Yeah. And I think that's almost letting go of your ego, you know, even more, right? But, you know, this is the funny thing. No matter what you call it, we're all still adjusting subluxation. And I sort of, people who spend a lot of time around me, they know that I love to put on a tinfoil hat every once in a while and dive into conspiracies and, you know, take some red pills from Morpheus, whatever, whatever analogy you want to use.

[00:08:03] But one of the things that I found really interesting, you know, in recent times is that they really have gone after, at least when I was at university, the concept of subluxation and saying that subluxation doesn't exist.

[00:08:18] And the reason they've done that, I think, is because that is our entire basis for, we're the only ones that aren't allopathic, right? You know, you can have some great naturopaths. They're still like, okay, symptom based here, outside in, you know, we can have some great physiotherapists and again, outside in, but we're the only ones talking about above, down, inside out.

[00:08:38] And we're talking about interference on the nervous system through subluxation. And they really went after that concept of subluxation doesn't exist. Ask somebody who says subluxation doesn't exist. What's it? What do you mean? What's the definition of subluxation? What is a subluxation? And the truth is, they actually won't have a definition because they've never actually put in the time to figure out what a subluxation is, right?

[00:09:05] But, and I'll say this to people, you get to define how you want, what you feel is subluxation. Doesn't that matter if you're mechanistic or if you're, you know, neurological based or if you're vitalistic or whatever, or even pain based. If you take subluxation out of the picture, whether it's mechanistic, vitalistic, neurological, then what's the point in seeing a chiropractor? Go to see the physiotherapist or the massage therapist?

[00:09:34] Or can I stretch it out? Can I roll it out? Can I, you know, what's our point of difference? We take subluxation out of the equation and chiropractic ceases to be relevant or ceases to exist.

[00:09:48] I agree. 100%. And for me, yeah, I think wanting to call lots of things chiropractic doesn't make it chiropractic. We have a foundation that we were created from and we wouldn't be here without that philosophy that we were built on, I don't believe.

[00:10:06] So, you know, it's unfortunate that many of the schools don't have this as a center point of their teachings because I do feel like we have to go find it then many times after school. Or maybe we had it already before we went to school because I know there's that too. For me, the philosophy piece, I also think, to your point, Andrew, like it's like your ego. Yeah, you're not the one doing the healing.

[00:10:33] You're having to be a conduit essentially for that other person, but their own innate is on the job. And I think there's an element of more ease in your system when you let the philosophy actually mean something to you because you realize I'm not in control. And that's actually a good thing. And I can honor that there's an intelligence in all things, all the time, giving it life.

[00:11:00] And so, you know, that's the second principle in chiropractic is that the chiropractic meaning is to look for life and intelligence through matter, right? So like this reverence for life, and it doesn't say this control of life is like what we're about as chiropractors. And you can see it in, you know, studying the biology of a mouse too, I guess. But we don't get taught from that. If it was in the right context, right?

[00:11:30] Exactly. There's intelligence in all things all the time. And so for me early on, I think I was seeing around, I don't know, 150, 200 people a week. And my mentor said to me, you've got to get around chiropractors who's who's chiropractic. And he meant like the philosophy and of course the art too and the science. But that's where I just started to seek out these philosophical events where there was going to be lots of chiropractors.

[00:11:56] And I just sit there and like some people I'd lean in, some people I wrestled with it. Like I don't know what I felt like they said felt dogmatic. And I think that's part of wrestling through the philosophy is it has to become your own philosophy on some level. But chiropractic has a very defined philosophy. So a part of my journey was doing from Sherman College doing the ACP, which was the Academy of Chiropractic Philosophers.

[00:12:22] And that was a really important piece for me, I think, because it forced me through going to the four or five weekends where you sat through some of the most deeply philosophical chiropractors of our time, going through some of the teachings with you. And then at the end of it, you have to write a thesis. And that was something that was pretty nerve wracking for me. But it was one of those defining years for me where I realized like, no, I love this philosophy.

[00:12:49] And I just hadn't been exposed to the depth of it up until that point. And then that's the gift that keeps on giving because not only, you know, does it grow your conviction and your clarity of why we do what we do, but I think it changes your entire outlook on your life, right?

[00:13:06] Like, the more the philosophy becomes so real to you, the more you're applying it to how you parent, to how you make decisions for your children, to, you know, for me, when my mom was passing in on hospice, like if I didn't have, I think, this awareness of how life unfolds and the intelligence in all things. And some would say they get that from their faith.

[00:13:28] For me, it was a lot through like witnessing life unfold with this chiropractic philosophy as a lens to watch through. And that really helped me. So I think it makes us a much better doctor to wrestle through the philosophy. Yeah. I think, you know, what are you talking about? I'm like, well, there's so many, we're going to have to do like two episodes on this or three or four. You know, just keep going about this.

[00:13:51] But I was thinking about, you know, when I first started studying chiropractic and I'll admit this, I like grew up seeing a pretty, well, look, my first chiropractor, she moved more towards NET. And she was also a very long way away. We'd been sent to see her because she was family connection.

[00:14:15] And so we moved to somebody closer who was a direct referral and our first chiropractor, obviously, you know, like if you talk to NET people, they're really talking about very philosophy kind of based. Right. And I think this is a really good lesson for people out there is that I don't recall at any point in time her actually talking about the philosophy of chiropractic and taking the time to actually explain, you know, this is what I'm, you know, we're removing supplications.

[00:14:44] That's where your pain's coming from. Because, you know, I was like a 13 year old boy with playing too much cricket with like knife stabbing pains in the middle of my back. Right. So then we kind of moved to somebody closer to home, again, another referral. And he was very mechanistic, which that was his style, but I didn't know any better. And then I kind of like, I was like, what do I want to do? And I, okay, like I loved seeing John. All right. So I want to want to study chiropractic.

[00:15:14] And I remember going in to see him for an adjustment. I was like, John, I'm going to study like chiropractic. And he's like, and I was actually working in insurance claims. So I didn't start studying until I was like 23. I can't even picture you in insurance claims. You know what? I look back at that now and I'm like, how did my brain handle that? But, and he, you know what he said to me? He goes, oh, don't. It's, you know, it's, it's really tough. And I was like, what?

[00:15:42] Cause like, I have patients now and they're like, I'm thinking I want to study chiropractic. And I'm like, yes. And you know, like I now coach somebody who was a patient of mine when they were 15 and they're like, they've graduated. They took a job with another coaching client of mine, um, who's a scale client. And then they, you know, and they're crushing it. And it's just like, it's like this Cinderella story, you know, my tech CA, she started studying. She was a patient first study, started studying chiropractic. Now she's my tech CA.

[00:16:11] Anyway, I just get so excited. Cause I really think that what we do is the best profession and the greatest thing ever. But, but I think about like, if you lose clarity on why we do what we do and you don't have that philosophy, then it is tough to show up every day. And it is tough to hear the like, oh, you know, why don't GPs like chiropractors? And it, you know, it's tough to go through that kind of point of difference because we are so different.

[00:16:39] If you forget the philosophy that we have. Well, then when did I come across the real chiropractic philosophy? I was already studying at university and I needed a job because I'd actually moved to the other side of the country. I grew up in Sydney. Now I live in Perth. I've moved across the country and I was like, well, I need, I need a job, um, to be able to survive. And it makes sense that I work at a chiropractic clinic. So a friend of mine at uni, he'd taken the job.

[00:17:08] They were doing a screening with another, his clinic was doing a screening with another clinic. And they were like, yeah, we're looking for a student. I got past the business card. I was the only person that contacted this clinic, my, my old boss, Glenn. And, um, he said to me later, he's like, I kind of envisioned a female, but like you're the only one that like applied. And I just thought, well, we'll give him a go. And that was halfway through first year. And I still remember he gave me an assignment.

[00:17:37] Um, we had some, uh, like James Chestnut content, like really old PowerPoints. And he's like, can you, and they, but they were locked. Like you couldn't edit them or anything like that. He'd purchased them and they were locked as were. And, um, and he wanted me to like transcribe them into like more new, more modern art, like, you know, background art and that kind of stuff. And as I'm typing this stuff out and transcribing these PowerPoints, I'm like learning.

[00:18:06] And I'm like, is this, holy shit, is this chiropractic? This is awesome. Like, why didn't nobody tell me this? Why aren't they telling me this? Right. So, and this is like an awakening for me in like first year where I'm like, oh, and then, you know, we were doing a workshop similar to Better Results Faster. And I would stick around every time there was a, you know, a workshop after one of my shifts,

[00:18:32] I'd stick around, I'd listen and just, you know, I guess one of the things that really hit home to me was when I was a teenager and this was, I didn't make a link of this until much later in life. But when I was a teenager, we almost lost my dad to, uh, you know, a heart problem, like very, very close to a heart attack. Like I've talked about this at Immersions before when I'm presenting, and this is probably

[00:18:58] a story that really like has defined my health journey and my philosophy around health. He had 90% coronary artery occlusions with no symptoms. And just so happened that a GP coincidentally picked it up on like a, he switched GPs because he wasn't happy with his one and they went, all right, we'll do a routine physical. And they actually did an exam for once. Um, and that exam literally saved dad's life because they were like, oh, uh, no symptoms, but you are on the cusp of a heart attack.

[00:19:28] Right. And so long story short, dad had coronary bypass surgery, saved his life. But I just remember that, and that's at 46. And I just remember seeing dad just in the hospital bed, open heart surgery for like six weeks, just drained of life when I was 13. And as I grew older, I thought, okay, it's great that we have that emergency sort of response,

[00:19:57] but a healthy man shouldn't be nearly about to drop dead. And in their forties, right? Like, and, and heart disease is a gold, gold medal killer for men. Right. And it just made me really reflect on how this reactive allopathic treat the symptoms medicine is literally costing lives. And my dad was very nearly one of them.

[00:20:24] One of the reasons why I fell in love with the chiropractic philosophy once I finally came across it was because I had seen the other side of what allopathic reactionary symptom treating medicine looked like. And it was nearly having no dad as a teenager. You know, that is something that when I'm tired or things are not going as planned, which, you know, we've all been there as business owners.

[00:20:49] The thing that gets me to kind of rally is how many of different iterations of my dad exist in my local area that need the chiropractic philosophy, not the allopathic philosophy. How many lives could we potentially save? How many lives are we literally losing on a daily basis because we are just looking at health in the completely wrong direction? That's the philosophy that really drives me.

[00:21:18] And, you know, I love delving into the, like, I guess the quantum physics side of things with universal intelligence, gifting us innate intelligence and all that kind of stuff. But if you want to go like just the simplest philosophy, it is that, like, symptoms are nothing more than a signal from your body. They may be an interruption to your nervous system function and your body needs two things. And that is a healthy nervous system and an environment that allows it to heal. Otherwise, you are in trouble.

[00:21:48] Yeah, so true. And I think that's part of what is missing most of the time is it's actually a very simple philosophy. Yeah, we can complicate it. We can talk, you know, quantum physics if you want. But even that. Your patients don't need to hear any of that. No, but even that, if you go in the complexity of all of it, there is still a very simple

[00:22:13] premise, which is that life is moving through you and there is a connection to that which is greater than us. And yeah, you can write green book after green book or you can sum it up in two sentences. The end. So, you know, I think call to action here is just if it is something where you've struggled with conviction or your certainty around chiropractic, likely seeking out some mentors with some

[00:22:40] philosophy that's greater than you and some conviction that's greater than you. And just someone said to me, like, when you squeeze an orange, orange juice should come out. When you squeeze a chiropractor, chiropractic should come out, not medical jargon. That's for me what was what I needed in your whatever it was, one, two, three, four, five still today. But to get around people who speak chiropractic at a level and their certainty and their conviction and their understanding of the philosophy.

[00:23:08] You know, you wear your mentors clothes until your size fits. Right. And so, you know, like learning how they speak about it and use some of their language, then eventually, you know, you find your own in how you're going to explain it simply and what your truth is in this, I think is a really important piece that many times we want to skip that step. But by firming up that root, developing that, that root in the philosophy, I think it's a,

[00:23:37] again, it's a gift that keeps giving to your practice and your practice members. Yeah. Because they're coming to you for that, for your energy. And if you have no energy behind what you do, they stop coming to you. And like I said, you know, subluxation is the whole reason to go and see a chiropractor, whether you get to define it how you want to define it. But subluxation is the whole reason people come and see a chiropractor. And I remember hearing, like, I remember the first time hearing Steve Franson at an immersion

[00:24:06] say, the main reason people drop out of care is because they don't know why they should keep coming back. And I was like, you know, that's when, I don't know if they do this at the American immersions, but at the Australian immersion, they yell out like, oh, that's a nugget from the back of the room. I think Malcolm's like, nugget. And I'm like, you know, like if, if they don't know about subluxation, then, oh, can I stretch it out? Can I exercise it out? Can I take a painkiller?

[00:24:34] So if you're not clear about what kind of, you know, how you define subluxation, you're not communicating to that patient, they're going to drop out of care. It's simple because they don't know that if you have a patient say to you, oh, what's the difference between a chiropractor and physiotherapist? Then like, you're not explaining chiropractic very well because it's subluxation, right? We're the only ones that look for it. We're the only ones that do it. Whether your standpoint is mechanistic, neurological, vitalistic, it doesn't matter. It's still a subluxation.

[00:25:04] And even if, even if you define yourself that way, we're still doing the same thing and there's still a neurological thing that happens. And you can be as mechanistic as you want, but that nervous system is still doing its thing going, oh, thank God. I was talking to a mechanistic chiropractor that goes to the same gym as me and he's a great guy. And he's like, and I fed it into a conversation. He's like, hey, you know, like sometimes weird stuff happens when I adjust the spine and things that I wasn't expecting get better.

[00:25:33] And I'm like, I wonder why, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's so funny. We're such an interesting profession, but also, you know, I think it's an, it's like the, the greater population too. There's so many different beliefs mixed into, you know, what we get exposed to. And that's true in our profession too. And I think I was just at mile high this weekend coming off a very philosophical weekend with, you know, American chiropractors.

[00:26:03] And I think what's beautiful is like in the past, you know, there was a lot of division based off of how we labeled ourselves. Oh, I'm subluxation based. Oh, I'm whatever. I'm a straight, I'm a mixer, you know? Yes. And now I really hope that at the end of the day, if we could agree that the number one thing that we can offer our patients is communication around what's happening with their spine and their nervous system. The adjustment is what we're doing.

[00:26:33] We are adjusting people. Whether you call it a subluxation or not, I would advocate and Andrew would advocate that you are calling it that. And it's an adjustment, not a manipulation. But whatever you decide for your languaging, at the end of the day, if we could just not work against each other, you do you, we'll do us. And the water's fine. Come on in, right? Like we're inviting people into, you know, different experiences so that they can learn more.

[00:27:02] Because I generally think people move more in the direction of like, maybe I was mechanistic and then I got exposed to more ideas. I started to notice all of this stuff and, you know. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. But at the end of the day, we just don't need to work against each other. It doesn't need to be a fight. Everyone can exist. And that would be better for the public. Yeah. And you see these social media videos float around being like, oh, this is a red flag if a chiropractor is talking to you about this.

[00:27:30] And it's like, well, you don't have any idea what their philosophy is, what their technique is, you know, what their business structure is, why they're doing it that way. Why don't you actually just go talk to them instead of making like a stupid video that takes people away from chiropractic. Exactly. Right? Do you know what I, when I'll ask somebody about like how their family members are going and like talk to them about coming them in and they go, oh, they're, they're seeing a chiropractor already. And I go, I don't go, well, we're better. Come see us.

[00:28:00] I go, fantastic. I just want to make sure everyone's getting adjusted. That's what I want. And in Australia, the utilization rate is about 14%. We don't need to piss in each other's pocket and try and like, is that a phrase in America? No, but I think we all get the idea of what it is. There are 86% of the population has no idea what a chiropractor does. And if we just all helped each other see that other 86%, then boy, imagine how much better

[00:28:30] the world would be whether you think that you're just adjusting for pain and their nervous system's magically getting better under the surface or, or you're like, yep, I'm all in on vitalism. It doesn't matter. Let's just get people adjusted and let's let the body heal itself and do the talking. I think that's a great place to end right there, Andrew. Let's do that. Did you drop the mic on that one? Yeah. Good. Yeah. All right. So next time we'll leave you hanging.

[00:28:56] It's either going to be the science or business that we'll be talking about. Yeah. Or if we decide that we haven't hashed out philosophy enough, we might do philosophy part two. We're just going to stay on these four topics. Yeah. Yeah. Just perpetually running around. That's good. All right. Well, I'll see you next week. You will indeed. Okay. Bye, Andrew. Ciao. Thanks for listening to this episode of Build Your Remarkable Practice podcast.

[00:29:25] Remember, what the world needs now is chiropractic and what chiropractic needs now is more successful chiropractors. If you like the podcast, please subscribe, share with your friends and leave us a review. And if you'd like to connect with us personally, please click the links in the show notes to schedule a call.