Change Your Mind

“For the glory of God is a living man.” – Irenaeus of Lyons A.D. 325

I often think of Creation.  I stand in awe at how beautiful our world is.  From the grand scale of entire mountains, oceans, and forests, to the wonders of the tiny little ecosystems you can find on the top of a log or the side of a rock.  Creation is absolutely incredible!  But as incredible as decaying logs are, you are more incredible!  In everything that He made, He chose to create YOU in His image and likeness.  What an honor!  Turtles didn’t get that honor.  Mosquitos, definitely not.  Even our loving pets as great as they are did not receive that blessing.  You did.  You were made in His image, in His likeness to be a reflection of the Creator, to be a reminder to the rest of the world who He is.  The pinnacle of all creation is YOU.  The glory of God is a human fully alive, just as He created you to be.  Why then doesn’t it feel that way?

As you study HOW and WHY you were created it becomes clear that we were meant to have relationships.  In fact, four relationships are essential.  To be fully human, fully alive you must have a relationship with GOD, a relationship with OTHERS, a relationship with the EARTH and your Earthly BODY, and a relationship with your SELF.  At the center of these relationship should be the Creator.  Due to some lies and bad choices, our eyes were opened and suddenly the notion that God did NOT need to be at the center and that we humans could operate out of our own wisdom entered and ruined the world.  So here we sit today, creatures made in the image of an infinite, all-powerful, loving God, yet often we feel less than the decaying log.  It’s time to reclaim the glory with which you were made.  Its time to change your mind!

I urge you to take a good hard look at all four of the essential relationships in your life.  Ask yourself how you’re doing in these areas and how must you improve.  But in dealing with people every day, the one broken relationship I see most often is with your SELF.  This is an absolute tragedy!  If you only knew how amazing you are and how loved you are, there would be no fear, no shame, no guilt, no hesitation to just be you and to love yourself.  But that take awareness.  So let me make you aware of some things.

You are not your thoughts.  Your thoughts are yours.  Most people go through life thinking that the voice in their head is who they are.  That voice is not you!  You are the consciousness that HEARS those thoughts.  The fact that you listen to them means you are not them.  The best analogy I’ve found is that you have a roommate in your head.  That roommate LOVES to talk.  Problem is, your roommate is a critic.  A critic will always tell you what you did wrong and will never give any advice on how to make it better.  Food critics:  that muffin is bad.  Art critics: that painting is ugly.  Never advice, just critiques.  Once you recognize that you are not your thoughts and that they are nothing more than a rude roommate who doesn’t do their dishes, you can start to argue with them!  You can decide to tell them how they are wrong.  You can stand up for yourself.  You can flip the script and make your thoughts your own.

Your thoughts are weapons either to be used by you against the enemy or to be used by the enemy against you. Have you ever noticed that you are the meanest person you know?  You put yourself down; you tell yourself how terrible you are, and you’re a flat out jerk to yourself!  I pray you never allow someone to speak to you the way that you speak to you!  But once you come to realize that you are not your thoughts, it becomes very clear what is going on. 

John 10:10 says that the enemy comes only to kill, steal, and destroy.  The enemy is using your thoughts against you!  He has taken your mind as a weapon to make you feel like you are less than a decaying log.  God says the exact opposite.  He says that you are His glory and greatest creation!  Why in the world would you let anyone tell you otherwise!  Be aware that your thoughts are being used as a weapon against you.  Once you see what is happening, you can choose to use that weapon for yourself!  Fight against negative thoughts.  Remind yourself constantly who you are and Whose you are!  Rebuke the devil and he must flee.  But first you have to know its him in the first place. Weaponize your mind!

We all have a State of Mind and we can change it.  There are 5 states of mind.  From worst to best they are:

Victim:  Everything happens TO you.  The world is against you.  He hurt you.  They did that to me.  I am a helpless victim and there’s nothing I did wrong or could’ve done better.  It’s not my fault.

Pessimist:  Everything and everyone is bad.  If something can go wrong it probably will.  People are mean.  Why bother?  If something good happens, something bad is right around the corner.  Good people always lose.  I’m just unlucky.

Optimist: Everything and everyone is good!  If something can go right it will!  The best outcome will always occur.

Rationalist:  Things and people are not good or bad.  Things are just things and I will handle what ever comes to the best of my ability. 

Opportunist:  Everything, whether it’s painful or joyful is an opportunity for me to grow and to be a better person.  Whether I like what is happening or not, it is good.  To the Christian, I can live my life in freedom knowing that everything that happens is by His design and it will ultimately bring me closer to Him and the glory will be His.  Even if I don’t understand or it doesn’t fit my desires or plans, His will is infinitely better than mine. 

I’m hope it’s obvious why one would not want to live the life of a victim or pessimist.  But the Optimist, Rationalist, and Opportunist are each good so it is important to give an example.  During Vietnam, these states of mind were observed in the POWs.  What was found was that the Optimists were always hopeful that they would be home released very soon.  They’d say, “We’ll be home by Christmas!”  Christmas would come and go.  “We’ll be home by Easter for sure!” Easter would come and go.  Eventually they would give up hope and die from a broken heart.  The Realists on the other hand would face reality.  “We might be here for years.  In fact we might never go home but I’m going to live the best life as long as I can in hopes that one day I’ll see my family again.”  More often than not it was the Realists that lived.  But the difference in the Realists and the Opportunists came when they got home.  The Realists lived but there was no meaning in their suffering.  They came home to a world they did not recognize and were dejected and rejected.  The Opportunist came back with a new lease on life!  Their suffering was GOOD!  They became better for it.  It drew them closer to God and gave them growth they NEVER could have attained without their years of torment.  Their state of mind, the meaning they gave to their pain made them better, not worse.

You can change your thoughts and you can change your State of Mind.  It is a long hard process that requires a ton of self reflect and thought.  BUT no matter what has happened or what you’ve been through, you can change!  The first step is to be aware.  Know that you are not your thoughts.  Use your mind to fight off an enemy who wants to destroy you.  Be aware of the state of your mind and take steps daily to improve.  Above all, know that you are the Glory of God in all of His Creation!  It’s time to start acting like it.

In Health and Faith,

 

Dr. Marc

Justice For ALL

Pastor Tim is a good friend of mine.  While attending a small group gathering he was leading he taught me something I will not soon forget.  He told us that when talking to someone, listening to them, and empathizing with them, you should never tell them “I understand.”  I was taken aback for a minute thinking to myself, “I tell people I understand all the time!”  But as he continued I realized how right he was.  You should never tell anyone that you “understand” what they are going through or the hardships they are facing because the fact is that you DON’T understand.  Now please don’t get me wrong, you might have faced similar hardships, you might be able to empathize with them, and your heart might be breaking along with theirs but the fact remains, you cannot possibly fully understand.

I love my wife VERY much.  If God made soul mates, she is mine without a doubt.  We have done every aspect of life together for the past 13 years.  Together we went to undergrad, chiropractic school, and a year of training post school. We’ve worked as employees together and we’ve worked as business owners together.  We eat the same food, workout together, adjust each other.  She is my best friend and partner in life!  BUT, while we have lived the same life for so long, God help me, I do not understand that woman!  We are VERY different people.  Her joys are not always my joys and her hurts are not always my hurts!  We are two individuals with two very different experiences in life alongside each other.

On paper my brother and I are the same person.  He’s a bald chiropractor married to a chiropractor owning and operating a health center, loving God, family, and country.  The only difference is I’m slightly better looking and smarter!  And he’d probably say the same thing about himself, which is just another example.  But again, I often do not understand him!  We are two individuals, cut from the same cloth experiencing life in similar but very different ways. 

I love the Pledge of Allegiance.  I don’t think we say it or think about it enough.  It is a powerful declaration of who we are and what we stand for.  I strongly believe that if we all actually made that pledge and lived by it we could once again be the greatest country in history, especially if we all came to live “Under God.”  But recently the line “…and justice for all” really hit a chord with me.  I really had to question, what does justice for all mean and how do we live in alignment with that pledge in our country?  Lets take a look!

Justice: 1) fairness. 2) moral rightness. 3) a system of law in which every person receives their due from the system, including all rights, both natural and legal. 

Justice is one of Dr. Lauren’s highest values.  To her all things should be fair.  They should be equal.  If you work hard you should be rewarded.  If you don’t you should expect nothing.  All people should have the same opportunities and no one should be discriminated against for ANY reason.  She will always stand up against INJUSTICE.  She has a very hard time standing up for herself but if she sees someone or some group acting unfairly or intentionally hurting, abusing, or bullying a weaker more vulnerable person or group she comes alive with a passion that drives her to defend and protect beyond the limits of her ability and rightfully so.  Justice is a principle of God.  He is just.  Pastor Tony Evens explains it this way: “[Justice] is the equitable and impartial application of the rule of God’s moral law in society. There is no clear and right definition of justice that excludes God. So to grasp justice, we must go to God’s Word. The Bible condemns injustice because God is just. As the ultimate lawgiver, He strongly opposes injustice.”  God always does what is right and fair.  We then as a society should also strive for what is right and fair.

For ALL: 1) every, everything, everyone. 2) exhaustively including every portion, person, or part. 3) leaving out none. 

There are a lot of people in the United States.  334,183,570 as of Feb 21, 2022 to be exact give or take a few.  The pledge states that there is to be justice for all leaving out none. Everyone.  Exhaustively including each of us.  No less than 334,183,570.  We are a nation made up of INDIVIDUALS all living under God with our own life experiences.  We have each had different challenges, hardships, and difficulties that cannot be truly understood.  Similarly our happiness and motivation in life comes from different sources.  But the fact is that God loved each and every individual so much that He would send His Son to die for ALL.

In this light “Justice for all” then becomes a clear statement that every INDIVIDUAL should be treated equally and with fairness with no discrimination and that injustice should be opposed at all costs as it flies in the face of our just God. 

“We are in this together”, then is a gross over generalization.  We are not in this together.  We all have different struggles and fears that are our own.  We all have different life experiences.  We all have different views.  Even in our own marriages and families we are individuals with differing emotions and desires.  When “I” becomes “we”, we lose the capacity to attain “justice for all”.  Slowly the whole becomes more important than the parts.  The foot is no loner essential to the body and it is forgotten.  The ear becomes an annoyance and is removed.  The hand pulls the body in a different direction so it is cut off.  The individual is treated unjustly “for the greater good.” 

Nowhere is individualism more important than in health.  The human body is the most complex and beautiful miracle God ever contrived.  Humans with all of their science and research have hardly scratched the surface as to how God designed us.  There are an infinite number of variables that make a human live and thrive.  We humans try to simplify those variables so we can attempt to control them but the fact is that everything that has ever happened to you, everything you have ever eaten, every breath you have ever breathed has landed you here and now with the health or lack of it that you have.  The task then becomes impossible to know exactly what an INDIVIDUAL needs to attain health.  Thankfully God didn’t just make us and leave us.  He left His intelligence inside of us that has been running and coordinating your life and health from conception and will be there until your last day!  So the task is not ours to determine the needs of the individual, only to live in alignment with how God created man, giving your body the tools it needs to do its job.

If we cannot possibly comprehend the needs of one individual, it is foolish to think that we can utilize a “one size fits all approach” to the health of our nation.  My needs are different than yours because my life has been different that yours. 

The founder of Chiropractic, Dr. D.D. Palmer set out to answer the question: if there are two twins sitting at the same table, eating the same food, breathing the same air and germs, why then does one get sick and the other stays well?  Because they are individuals with individual life experiences and individual needs.

Justice for all is lost when we foolishly attempt to live for the greater good.  Parts are cut off, individuals and treated unjustly.  I stand for individual health freedom.  You should too!

 

In Health and Faith,

Dr. Marc

Live FREE

I used to coach at a Crossfit gym in Florida called Crossfit Diehard.  It was a great place with a great community of people but one of my favorite parts of the gym was the culture.  The concept of Diehard came about first from the movie “Diehard” which was a favorite of the owner!  But the deeper mean was that you must Live Free or Die Hard.  In the gym setting that meant to commit to working hard and training for the demands of life so that you can live on your own terms without limits.  But beyond the gym that thought has really stuck with me throughout the years because the longer I live the more I find that statement to be true.  We all make the choice in life to either live freely or else we will die hard.

I believe that HEALTH = FREEDOM.  I do not say that lightly.  Freedom is one of the things I value the most in life and I believe that God created man to be free.  Now I’m not talking about the freedoms that we are supposed to have from the US Constitution.  As we have seen recently those freedoms can be taken away from us.  The freedom that God created us for is the FREEDOM FROM FEAR.  We need not fear the things of this world when we know who we are, whose we are, and how He made us.

Recently I wrote about discovering WHO you are.  I think that is a fundamental step that all people must take.  If you don’t know who you are and what you stand for, as the saying goes, you will fall for anything and the enemy will easily have his way with you leading you to fear and bondage (the opposite of freedom).  WHOSE you are has been written in stone.  You need only to seek and you will find.  Ask, and God will reveal to you a deeper understanding of Him and His love for you that you might fully comprehend what it means to be His and loved by Him.

HOW He made us is harder.  It is hard because from the day that you were born, you have been lied to.  You have been led to believe that God made your body weak, broken, and lacking man-made interventions in order for you to live and be healthy.  That is a lie from the enemy in order to keep you in fear and bondage.  God made you for LOVE and JOY and LIFE – that you might live ABUNDANTLY lacking NOTHING.  He also made you for HEALTH. 

God designed you to be healthy and full of life and that becomes so clear when you understand that He created you with the Principle of Health.  Just like gravity, it doesn’t matter if you believe in it our not.  The apple will always fall.

That principle says that:

Your body is self-healing and self-regulating

Your body constantly adapts to its environment in order to survive

The power that MADE your body HEALS your body

And that Power needs no HELP from man, just no INTERFERENCE from man

Now, God planted that power to heal in your brain and nervous system which is why we say in chiropractic that LIFE FLOWS through your spine because God designed your spine to surround and protect your spinal cord and nerves.  So ANY misalignment of your spine is interfering with your life’s ability to flow out to ever corner of your body!

Now your body is so intelligent that it warns you when there is interference.  It creates PAIN.  Your pain is a good thing!  It’s your body warning you that something is wrong and you need to fix it right away OR ELSE THINGS ARE GONNA KEEP GETTING WORSE! 

The same is true of all symptoms.  They are merely warnings.  High blood pressure, asthma, digestive issues, headaches, thyroid issues, sciatic pain, numbness and tingling.  They are not signs of disease, they signs of dysfunction and your body is begging you to make a better choice so that it can do its job and heal.

Viruses and bacteria are the exact same thing.  They are there to WARN YOU WHEN YOU ARE OFF TRACK.  Germs are literally EVERYWHERE.  It’s foolish to think we can kill them all with sprays and block them with masks.  Even if we could, they are essential to life!  There are 70 trillion human cells in your body.  There are 100 trillion bacteria.  There are 100,000 trillion viruses in your body.  (yes, you read it right.  It’s a really big number).  You are far more germ than human.  The germs do not make you sick. They are ALWAYS there.  If they made you sick, you would ALWAYS be sick. God made germs to help you and act as a warning that you need to live better! 

Why then should we fear germs, sickness, pain, or disease?  They are a part of God’s perfect design.  It’s God within telling you that you need to live a better life.  That you must return to a life He intended you to live.  Put in good foods. Move your body and fill your lungs with fresh air.  Remove the manmade toxic chemicals that disrupt your body’s balance.  Remove the interference from your nerve system that life might flow freely.  And most importantly: Do not fear. 

When you come to realize that you were made to be free from fear of death and disease, at first you’ll likely be upset.  Upset that our entire world is telling you the opposite.  Telling you to fear!  It will become clear why it seems like our whole world is suffering.  To me that is the definition of dying hard.  A life full of suffering due to fear, worry, stress, anxiety.  That is true bondage.  But, soon you will feel and understand what it means to be free.  A FREEDOM that can only come from an understanding of how good God is and how wonderfully He made us. 

So today choose to LIVE FREE.

If you care about your Freedoms of Health, want to know more about how to live freely and protect our rights to choose how we live, on March 8th here at NGFC we will be hosting a Health Freedom Event where we will discuss how we can ensure our health freedoms and that of our families and future generations to come!  Grab a friend and I truly hope to see you there!

In Health and Faith,

Dr. Marc

Love Your Spine

Every Thursday I do some volunteer adjusting at the COS Dream Center. It’s a non-profit clinic that supports women in need. I love going and adjusting “my ladies” as I call them! They have given me more over the years than I could ever possibly give them.

One time I was adjusting a lady name Kathy at the DC. She is the sweetest old lady you’ll ever meet. She’s always telling me about her church and prayer group and how she gets them all up and dancing as often as she can! As I was adjusting her she looks up at me with a smile and says, “you must love spines.” I looked back at her and said, ”No! I HATE spines!” I explained to her that all day every day my job is to fight against stupid spines that are literally all bent out of shape. I told her that what I love is your nervous system and its my job to keep your spine in proper order knowing that when you have a misaligned spine it disrupts the signals that your brain is sending down to your body! I feel like I have been locked in an eternal battle against spines in order to protect the flow of life from your brain above, down to your body below!

She was taken aback so I quickly smiled and told her that I was joking because the truth is that YES, I absolutely LOVE spines.

The more I study about spines the more amazed I am at God and His creation. He really did design us perfectly. When He breathed life into dust and made you, He planted that life in your brain and nerve system. But He knew how vital and delicate that life was so He protected it. He gave that life armor. First He made your skull to protect the brain. But He knew that your brain had to send signals down to the entire rest of your body, so He made your nerve super highway, which is your spinal cord so that those vital signals could get to every nook and cranny of your body.

Interesting side note here, there is no anatomical difference between your brain, brainstem, and spinal cord. It is more accurate to think of your spinal cord as a continuation of your brain than to see it as a separate part of your body. Neat!

Knowing how vital the spinal cord would be for life, God gave it armor as well. There are only two things in your body that are entirely surrounded and protected by bone: the brain and the spinal cord. Cool! Life is protected! But God also designed us to MOVE. Imagine trying to bend over if your spine was as solid as your skull. Try climbing a tree, or picking up your child with a rigid spine. So instead of one big bone God built 24 movable bones – your vertebrae! In between each vertebra there are specially designed spaces for your nerves to exit so they can go out and run your body and give you life.

The problem is that because He created those 24 bones to twist and bend so that you can run, and dance, and work, and play in life they are able to get out of whack. When that happens the hero becomes the villain. An out of place vertebra will always interfere with the flow of life out to your body. That’s called a subluxation. In English it means “less than a luxation” which is less than a dislocation. In Greek it means “less light”. Less “light” flowing to your body. I don’t know about you but I want as much light, as much life flowing to my body as God intended!

So this “Valenspines” week, take some time to thank God for your spine, get your subluxations adjusted, and take care of your spine throughout your ENTIRE life because He only gave you one and without it you’d be nothing more than a helpless blob of jelly!

In Health and Faith,

Dr. Marc

More Llama Drama

I never knew how much people like llamas! If you missed last weeks newsletter on llamas and how they handle fear, go check it out at northgatefamilychiropractic.com/blog or ask the NGFC Team for a copy. But, in the mean time let the llama drama continue! 

LLAMA FACTS:

• A baby llama is called a cria
• Llamas have 2 toenails per foot
• Llamas are related to camels
• Llamas spit at each other to establish dominance
• The Llama is the national symbol of Peru (idk which is better, an eagle or a llama)

I don’t know how much llamas think about fear.  I bet it’s hard to face a wolf and march straight towards it so I bet they think about fear pretty often.   Im not sure about them but I sure think about fear a lot.  Not that I am afraid all of the time but I am very curious as to what people are afraid of in their lives.  You see fear is on the lowest end of the spectrum of life.  Fear holds us down, binds us, cripples us, and leaves us desperate and miserable.  It is one of the worst experiences in life!  We humans will do just about anything to avoid fear.  In fact most of us spend our entire lives imagining all of the things that MIGHT go wrong in the future that we are afraid of.  Now lets be clear, these are most often things that have not happened but could POTENTIALLY happen.  We imagine a bad future.  The potential of losing our job, becoming sick from a bug, dying, people not liking us.  Even if the chances of that potential future becoming reality are slim to none, we will spend days, weeks, years, often our entire lives fearing that something bad will happen.  What a terrible way to live this incredible life God has given us. 

Freedom is on the opposite end of the spectrum of life.  Freedom to be who you are, to express yourself openly and honestly, to pursue the calling God has put on your heart and live life without fear.  What a way to live!  To play out your life in the moment, enjoying life as it comes and seeing the good in all things as opposed to fretting over things that which we have zero control over.  Now, I’m not saying you should shirk all responsibilities and live life with abandon.  God calls us all to be good stewards over the things He has entrusted to us, but freedom comes from knowing He is taking good care of us and that the worst thing that can happen in this life is that we get to go to heaven or that our loved ones get to go to heaven before us.  What then shall you fear?

All of this talk of fear and freedom sounds really good on paper but what do you do about it in real life?  There are two steps but they are not easy.

Step 1:  Define WHO YOU ARE and WHAT YOU BELIEVE.  The world has been TELLING you who you are and what to believe since you were born and that’s not ok.  You are not the thoughts and opinions of the world or the people around you.  No one even asked if you like your name!  You MUST find out who you are if you want to be free.  Here’s how:

Sit down in a quiet room, set a timer for 10 minutes and write down EVERYTHING you want.  Your dream house, a fancy car, a new TV, EVERYTHING you have ever dreamed of having.  Don’t hold back thinking that it’s selfish or silly.  These are things YOU want, not the world.  And don’t hold back just because you don’t see HOW you could ever have it, if you want it, write it. 

The next part is where the magic happens.  Next to everything you have written that you want, write down WHY you want it and then ask yourself why again, and again, and again.  Example: Why do you want your dream house of 10 bedrooms overlooking a mountain lake?  Because it would be awesome!  Why would it be awesome?  Because, I would be able to go hiking any time I like.  Why do you want to go hiking?  Because I love nature.  Why do you love nature?  Because that’s where I feel God’s presence.  Boom!  Part of who you are is that you love to feel God’s presence in His creation.  Even though it would be awesome you don’t need a mountain lake house to do that.  You can start to live your life according to what fulfills you.  Freedom.

Next, you must repeat this process with the things you BELIEVE.  Write down everything that you believe to be true and then ask WHY again, and again, and again. I believe in God.  Why?  Why?  Why?

Through this process you will discover a lot about yourself.  You will find out who you are and what you truly believe.  You might be surprised at who you find buried beneath the garbage that the world has placed on you.  But there is freedom in knowing.

Step 2: Define your fears.  Now that you know who you are, to live in full freedom you need to know what you are afraid of and why.  It’s the exact same process.  In 10 minutes write down everything you are afraid of.  Then ask why.  I am afraid of speaking in front of my peers.  Why?  They might not like what I have to say.  Why is that a bad thing?  They will think less of me.  Why does that matter?  I want them to like me.  Why?  I was picked on in school so I do everything I can to fit in even at the expense of who I am. 

Lastly, after you have broken down your fears, write out why those fears silly.  “I don’t need the approval of others.  I only need God’s approval (He made you, you have His), and my own approval.” 

By defining who you are and what fears you have, you can start living a life just like a llama.  You can face everything and rise.  You can stand for yourself and for your principles knowing that the fears you face are nothing more than feeble threats from the enemy.  Like the llama facing down the wolf, when you face your fears they will flee and in that there is ultimate freedom.

 

In Health and Faith,

Dr. Marc