Lesson from the financial crisis of 2009...
Back around 2009, as the financial crisis was unfolding, I thought, OK, no big deal. If I survived the dot-com crash of 2000, then I would survive this, too! At the time, I had some mentors who were old enough to have known chiropractors who had been through The Great Depression! And sure enough, I made it through in one piece.
But a lot of people didn’t, and some people are still trying to recover from the financial disaster that hit them around 2009!
There is one story in particular that haunts me to this day. It is the story of a patient who I treated sometime around 2011. Prior to the crash, this person had been working in a job that they liked, and they were making a decent living. However, right as the economy was taking a nosedive, they started to develop a lot of pain in their wrists. The pain got worse and worse, and nothing really helped. They tried physical therapy, wearing splints, exercising, resting, but nothing helped! Eventually, they had to quit their nice job due to the pain.
Eventually, they found their way to me. It turned out that this person’s problem was fairly straightforward. The pain was mostly coming from an emotional source! After just a few treatments (focused on NET - Neuro Emotional Technique), the pain was gone and the wrists felt normal again. At first, the patient was elated! They had tears in their eyes and were so grateful and relieved! But then, a cloud passed over their face and the elation turned to anger.
“Why didn’t anyone ever tell me that emotional stress could do this to my body?”
They stared at me as if I were the one who had been holding the secret all this time! Hey, it wasn’t me - I woulda told you!
They had lost 2 years of their life to pain, lost a good job during a time when good jobs were in short supply, and now had to find a new job during a recession. They were so angry, as if it were a conspiracy on the part of the medical profession! Once upon a time, I thought it might be, too. But now I know that it’s not a conspiracy. People just don’t know.
Everyone knows that stress can make you sick. But how many really know know that stress can trigger almost anything?! And that mindbody problems demand mindbody solutions? I don’t know if or how much relief this person would have gotten if they’d gone to a therapist for their stress. I do know that NET did the trick because their specific problem was being triggered by specific NECs (Neuro Emotional Complexes).
My point in writing this post is to let you know that if you are having a lot of pain or mysterious new symptoms during a time of big stress - even national level stress such as “the economy” or gas prices or whoever is the ruling class - consider the possibility that the underlying cause is the stress, and that you should get it checked out as such. You can’t change the outer facts of the stress - it will still be just as crazy out there - but you can change the way your body reacts to and handles the stress!
So, consider yourself told! And tell other people, too. Stressful times will always be with us. We have to learn to surf those waves.
And that is all I have to say about that!
-DK