Giving up on Getting The Big Idea Part 1
by Dr. Meggie Smith
The pressure to get my patients to accept The Big Idea can feel really overwhelming to me. I’m not good at controlling my patients. Using an authoritative approach to “make them get it” is exhausting. The truth of chiropractic, the truth of healing, is already inside of them. I feel lost trying to force someone to understand the deep and vital truths of their lives.
The pressure also stifles the connection between me and the people who come into my office. I used to do a group report of findings. I’d stand in front of people and talk at them about subluxation and Innate.
One day, a few weeks into care, a patient named Maria said to me. “When I came in on my second visit I was sitting in that room when you were talking and talking. I was just waiting for you to help me. Now my pain is gone and I’m so much happier. I’m so glad you finally helped me.” Talking at Maria didn’t help her understand The Big Idea. Putting my hands on her and helping her connect to the deep and true parts of her body allowed her to know her own Innate Intelligence.
When I was focused on making people “Get The Big Idea,” I’m not sure how many of them did. Very few of them got it from my group report of findings. Lots of them converted. But I think, like Maria, they got it in spite of my lectures on Innate. Not because of it.
These days I rarely mention subluxation or Innate in my practice. And yet, often on Day 2, patients pause, and say– in the tentative way we do when we are realizing a truth deep inside of us– that they want their children to get adjusted. They say they think this might help with bed-wetting, or digestive problems or behavioral issues. Other patients ask, unsure but hopeful, on their tenth or twentieth visit if I might be able to help their mother who has arthritis or their friend with migraines.
I never told them I could help with those things. I never told them that their mother and child has an innate intelligence that can heal them. I provided the quiet honest space for them to listen to their own truth. And in that place, they were able to listen to Innate. And, at some point along their healing journey, they realized that healing was possible for them and their loved ones.
The Big Idea is true. It is true inside every one of us. As a chiropractor, I have two choices. I can use my power to try to direct and control my patients into accepting BJ’s definition of subluxation. Or I can use my power collaboratively and help bring out the truth of Innate as it exists for each of them.
In the next issue, I’ll talk more about what that looks like. It’s not about dictating, directing and demanding they accept The Green Books. It’s about listening and holding space for people to come to their own truth. And it has the benefit of resulting in far, far more referrals than a killer group report of findings ever did.
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