~Informational and Research Articles~

“WHAT IS IT I DO?”
BY: Sue Brown, D.C.

         During my 10 years in practice, I’ve been asked many times, “What is it that you’re doing?”, “How does this work?” and other similar questions. And each time I’m asked I tell the person about Chiropractic philosophy and the innate wisdom of the body, each time they hear my answers it never quite satisfies them. The intellectual understanding of Chiropractic seems so simple, so small, when compared to the experience of healing. We hear the words “the body has an innate ability to heal itself, to self-correct” and perhaps have had the experience of healing on a small scale, but many people have never truly felt the full power of the healing force of which the body is capable. Or they have taken the incredible “house” that we live in for granted and all the little miracles along the way go unnoticed. So when they lay down on the table and with only a few light contacts their breathing deepens or their body starts to move, or they cry or laugh, these experiences seem beyond belief. And surely I must be doing something more than adjusting them. “Sue must be moving energy or opening chakras or performing psychic surgery or using voodoo dolls or she has some tremendous healing gift.” Well, I’m here to tell you that although energy may change when getting adjusted, your body is doing the moving not me. And although the chakras may open and close and do somersaults when on the table I have no control over them. And although psychic surgery sounds very exciting it’s a bit messy for me. And although when I was ten my brother and I copied a “Gilligan’s Island” episode and made a voodoo doll, I haven’t ventured into that realm since.

         I am a Chiropractor plain and simple. And I may be pretty good at what I do but the true gift of healing is within each one of you. Chiropractic allows you to reconnect with that special gift. It allows you to reconnect with the wisdom that created you from a single cell; increases your temperature when overcoming infection; heals the bumps and bruises of life, both physical and emotional; retrieves memories of a birthday party or of a loved one lost; it inspires you to cry in pain and jump for joy. Over the years the theories and models of why and how Chiropractic works may change but the philosophy and intention remains the same. Within the body there resides an innate wisdom. This wisdom coordinates, inspires, heals and motivates every action and reaction. It is perfect and ever-present. The nervous system is the main communication system of the body and this is vital for the transmission of that innate wisdom. The nervous system (NS) also being the memory and perception system of the body is constantly receiving and storing information from its internal and external environment. If at any point the NS is overloaded with input, the circuit will crash much like a computer system crashes when information is fed in too quickly. Unlike the computer, however, the body’s innate wisdom can adapt and change. It can self-correct. So instead of the entire system shutting down, the body will compensate, localizing the damage and creating what we call a subluxation (an interference pattern in the NS). This, then preserves the whole. Now, one or two subluxations will most likely go unnoticed. As they start to accumulate, however, the effects become much greater and therefore the NS becomes progressively more rigid. The body’s ability to adapt, self-correct and recover from stress decreases. Our perception becomes distorted, the natural healing ability of the body diminishes and we slowly become more a being of the past than of the present now moment. The cumulative effect of this stored tension or stored energy in the system, I believe, is the source of all dis-ease. What’s amazing is that the body’s ability to adapt is so great that it will continue to function even when greatly compromised. And what’s more amazing is that the body’s ability to heal is so great that even given the slightest chance to improve, it will self-correct. Getting adjusted gives your system that chance. Just as the subluxations in your system accumulate bit-by-bit in your body, getting regularly adjusted gradually and progressively releases those subluxations. With each adjustment your system becomes better able to adapt, better able to heal and self-correct. It gets closer to living in the now moment. Imagine if all your experiences could be perceived through a clear NS instead of being colored by the past. Imagine if your body was flexible enough to flow with every stress instead of hitting it head on. Getting adjusted takes you progressively toward the flexibility, the recoverability, the ease, the flow and the light of a child. I sometimes jokingly say to people “You’re getting younger everyday”. But I absolutely believe that it is true. Many people are constantly searching for that fountain of youth. Well, here it is. I fully intend to look and feel younger at 40 or 50 than I do now.

Kid You Have Potential
By: Sue Brown, D.C,

          Each day we are bombarded with constant input. Billions and trillions of sounds, smells, tastes, sensations, emotions, lights and thoughts happen all around us, to us, on us, and in us. And we, living in this blender of sensations, have to process and integrate all that we perceive. It is easy to understand why most people are overwhelmed most of the time. It’s like putting your mouth around a fire hose and turning on the hydrant. This overload is what causes the subluxation (interference) in the nervous system. When I was in school, I learned that subluxations were caused by the “unbalanced concussion of environmental forces”, and I viewed the body as being weakened by the forces it stored. It created tension, breakdown and a general dis-ease. It was a “bad” thing! As I have become more and more aware of energy and force dynamics I have had to seriously re-think this point of view. When looking at the overload of input in terms of forces, the picture becomes quite different. Forces impart energy. Whether it is the energetic pulse of a sound wave, the energy waves created when your foot hits the floor, the photons of light striking the retina of the eye or the energy of a strong emotion. Energy is not good or bad, it just is and it is meant to flow through all that exists. In fact, it is considered that the greater the flow of energy, the healthier the body. So why is it that all of these environmental forces imparting all of this “energy” don’t simply extend and improve our lives? Why does it seem to cause tension, stress and dis-ease? Because the body is not always able to integrate and flow with the energetic input. The body’s inability to integrate this energy causes it to be stopped as if by a dam and therefore stored instead of flowing through. The body was not meant as a storage house for energy and energy was not meant to be contained. This storage containment creates tension and dis-ease. But once again, energy is just energy and even though it may reek havoc when stored, contained and built up, it has an equally powerful healing affect when released. In much the same way as the Chinese character for crisis is opportunity, every bit of tension stored in the body is a great source of potential energy, waiting to be released. The greater the tension, the greater the unhealed event, the greater the source of potential energy and healing. Each time an adjustment is given, a little bit of potential energy is released, increasing the flow of life in the body. I no longer see it as “boy you have a lot of tension”, but rather, “boy you have a lot of potential”. Potential to heal, potential to grow, potential to feel, potential to evolve. Every bit of energy released to flow through the body increases the body’s ability and potential to function in a healthy flow. That is why we live in this never-ending barrage of input, to increase our energetic flow, to increase our healthy functioning, to help us evolve. Each step you take generates a force which generates a wave of energy which increases your flow. Have you ever noticed that people who lead sedentary lives tend to get more sedentary as time goes by? It is because there is no movement to help generate the forces, the very impulses of life. It is easier to keep an object in motion if it is already moving than to get it started from a dead cold stop. Explore life, welcome its experiences as generating force, generating energy, generating flow throughout your being, your existence.Once I began viewing life in terms of potential energy, it was amazing how light life got. If I get overwhelmed and am not fully integrating all of the input coming to me, I know that my body will store what I cannot integrate. That’s only a problem if I leave it there unattended. If, however, I get adjusted, it is simply energy that is allowed to flow, i.e. more fuel for my internal generator. Life is full of potential energy and so is your body. And lucky me! I get to help you release it and see you reach your full potential.

“There is a Universal Intelligence which is constantly giving to matter all of its qualities and characteristics, thus maintaining everything in existence.”

“Tone is the first principle of Chiropractic from which all other
principles derive.”

                                   D.D.Palmer, Founder of Chiropractic

Geometry of the System
By: Sue Brown, D.C.

         These concepts of Universal Intelligence and tone have been at the core of the philosophy of chiropractic since its discovery. They are the ideas that first attracted me to chiropractic. They are the principles that have been the foundation of my practice since its beginning 11 years ago. Never have these principles been so real to me as when I began exploring the geometry of the spine and human body. Through noticing how the body shifts and changes while being adjusted and the patterns of interference and tension that form when the body is exposed to stress, I began to see a certain symmetry in the patterning. If one vertebral segment moved in a particular fashion, correlating segments responded in kind. Further exploration showed an exact symmetry and perfect geometry of the human form. One that allowed a maximum flexibility while giving maximum stability. This geometry exists in all things. It is seen in the patterns of the petals of flowers and the seeds of a sunflower. What differentiates one molecular substance from the next is the spatial relationship or geometry of the atoms which comprise it. All of our senses respond not to the quantitative differences in the stimuli, but to the geometric differences. When we smell a flower we are not responding to the chemical substance, but to the spatial relationship of its molecular construction. Each of the sense organs is attuned to a particular range of frequencies. It is these frequencies which allow the fingers to feel and the eyes to see as opposed to the other way around. The energetic nature of atoms has been at the forefront of scientific exploration for the last several years. Every structure from the smallest sub-atomic particle to the limitless universe has a periodicity, a rhythm, a vibration and thus a tone. When an atom, the building block of all matter, is reduced to its smallest component we see that it becomes less like matter and more energetic in nature. This energetic matter, arranged in specific geometric patters, creates the molecules that form our physical reality. Each with its own unique tone. As the configurations become more and more complex, so does the tonal quality, finally creating the beautiful symphony that we are. So one must beg the question, does the music create our physical nature or does our physical form create our music? The answer is they are one in the same aspects of the same reality.. Goethe once said “Geometry is frozen music. Said another way, when the energies of the universe coalesce our physical form is created. Tone or energy is what the sub-atomic particles are, in essence, when reduced to our most finite components we are small bits of energy. In our truest form we are an ever changing piece of music and tone. Tone is what determines our structure and in turn that structure resonates with a characteristic tone. Each reflecting back to the other and strengthening their individual and yet complementary existence. In the never ending flow of degeneration and regeneration of the human body, the one constant, the aspect that brings order to chaos is the geometry. Cells are constantly dying and being replaced. Billions and trillions each day. And miraculously liver cells replace liver cells, lung cells replace lung cells, even though every single cell in the body has all the information necessary to produce any chemical and become any type of cell. But because it grows and develops in the tonal field of a heart, heart cells replace heart cells, therefore reproducing the geometry which then echoes back the heart melody letting the world of the human body know that all is well.
         We see this same relationship on a macroscopic level in our everyday lives. A child raised in a house of anger and hate will carry that tone into adult life. And although they may not express the emotion in the same way, the geometry it created is locking into their physiology echoing back now the
dissonant tone, instead of the pure music of life. A tonal field that now produces disease instead of health. A tone that distorts further our geometric structure, altering our function, altering our perception, altering our expression. The changes in the posture of our bodies is not just bad posture, but is reflective of a deeper vibrational shift. A shift which is synonymous with the subluxation which in the world of chiropractic is the cause of all dis-ease. So in releasing the subluxation we are releasing the dissonant tone; and in releasing the dissonant tone we release the body from its distorted geometry allowing it to then resonate with the pure tone of universal intelligence.
         The approach to the nervous system that I now utilize and teach is based on the innate geometric structure of the body. The work takes into ac count the geometric balance and correlations that naturally exist so that the body can make changes back to its fluid state as a whole instead of just parts moving. It seems that adjusting with the conscious awareness of the body’s geometry, we access an innate geometric wisdom that can access levels on a much deeper level. Tapping into the essence of the tone which created us. Each time I adjust I realize the power of that universal intelligence, and rededicate myself to finding the best way to free the geometry of our bodies so that we may experience the purity and perfection of that tonal field and echo it back. In that way we will be strengthening the life-giving field of the world.

Millennium Adjustment
By: Sue Brown 

         In the past I have written that the model I work with is based on the ideas and concepts of geometry and tone. And I would like to share some additional insights into this geometric model and how it came to be such an integral and all encompassing basis from which I work.
I had been very happy doing what I was doing, not practicing according to any specific formula, but just in flow with the nervous systems I was adjusting. I was quite content, staying at home at the EQLC office, off the “teaching circuit”. But as fate would have it, there was a greater agenda planned for me. Request after request kept coming, asking me to “teach” what I was doing. So, loving a challenge, I began to “pattern it out” and from that a geometric model surfaced. The full impact and significance of which would not become clear until later.
        F. Buckminster Fuller said that the entire universe is built on a framework of triangles. So it is not surprising that the human body is built according to the same principles. Our bodies are perfectly designed, not only internally containing all the organs and fluids needed to sustain life, but also externally. The human body is perfectly proportioned. Every great piece of architecture was based on human proportions. The beautiful cathedrals, buildings and sculptures that you see are simply geometric interpretations of the body. So when the model of adjusting that began to surface from my work was geometric in nature, as amazing as it was, it was not a surprise.
        The first patterns I noticed while on my quest were the long tracks of muscle tension, which I call subluxation tracks, which traverse the entire frame of the body. These tracks twist and turn, narrow and broaden, intensify and soften and are associated with misalignments and distortions of the skeletal system. Working with these tracks, I began to notice certain consistent patterns. One pattern was that the distortions were consistent from top to bottom. I found that if there was a rotational distortion at the bottom, the pattern would continue to be rotational through the entire body. Then there were places that seemed to intensify and “anchor in” to the system quite strongly, these places were the focal points that when adjusted allowed the release of the subluxations along the tracks. Then patterns began to emerge associated with the correlation of focal points, always geometrically aligning both the distortions and the releases. The symmetry, continuity and consistency of the patterns was uncanny. I began to be able to touch one part of the spine and predict what was going on in the rest of the system. And more importantly I was finding the way in which to convey and teach this system to others. As I began to draw the patterns the perfect geometry was revealed. The geometric pattern was triangular in nature and started at the tailbone and went all the way up to the front of the skull. If one point on the triangle was distorted, I found that there would be similar distortions on all the correlating points of the triangles throughout the entire system. This “misalignment” of triangles is what creates the sweeping patterns of the subluxation tracks and is associated with a deeper tension on the nervous system. It is the release of this geometric distortion that frees the tension on the nervous system allowing the body’s innate healing ability to flow freely.
        Now finding this geometric patterning was cool enough, but it pales in comparison to what was to be revealed next. I was doing some reading about wave integration and spirals and the text referred to a small diagram representing the Tree of Life. I glanced at this diagram and I saw the exact geometric pattern of the spine. I sat dazed for a moment and then began to read about the Tree of Life, "The Tree of Life represents the successive emanations of the spirit of the one vibrating upon the face of the waters; whereby the universe is created. The ten emanations with the 11th, Daat or Knowledge, and the relationships between them constituted by the 22 connecting paths, constitute the model upon which EVERYTHING, including man as microcosm, is modelled.” ( Jill Purce “The Mystic Spiral”)
         So this geometric model is according to ancient text, the model of every- thing. It is considered to be the path which spirit descended to become man and also the path man will ascend to reconnect with spirit. WOW!. D.D. Palmer, founder of Chiropractic, said “the sole purpose of Chiropractic is to reunite man the physical with man the spiritual”. Now is this some coincidence or have we (and I say WE because it is through your systems that this model was discovered and developed) stumbled into something quite profound. That is, the model to truly release the body from the confines of the past to reconnect completely with the innate wisdom within. And if it is more than just a coincidence, imagine the deep healing that could take place. I’ve always known that chiropractic was more than just about back pain. I’ve experienced and witnessed the great healing that has taken place everyday in the office. This, for me, just confirmed what I already knew to be true and deepened my commitment to be the best, to do the best.
        You can decide for yourself what is true. I know what I believe and hold the space for amazing things to happen. Either way, however, we must be amazed at the symmetry of life.

“One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.”
                                   Albert Einstein

Welcome to a new millennium in Chiropractic!