As I’ve sat and I thought about 2020, I can’t help but think about the whole picture. At first glance it’s the fear, hysteria, and chaos that we’ve all been blanketed with. The many of you who have lost jobs and loved ones. Many of you probably won’t even read this and haven’t been in our office for a whole year.
And some of you have people in your tribes and circle of friends who have literally never left their houses.
At my core, it’s not judgment but rather a deep sense of compassion and empathy for what many of you have been through in the last year.
There are many of you who found us for the first time this year. So many new families as a part of our practice community, so many of you are listening to the podcast and nearly 1000 people in attendance at the Heart of Freedom event last month.
Interestingly for the new practice members, you found us in the most non-direct way via a Facebook or Instagram ad. This is literally the first year we have ever done consistent advertising and lo and behold it brought some amazing patients to our community.
Many of you have chosen to take it upon yourselves, in the face of so much uncertainty, division and societal anxiety, to get in the best possible health ever. Many of you have brought your whole families in at the same time because when individuals heal, families heal but when families heal, COMMUNITIES heal.
I would assert to you– and I believe I’ve been talking about this for the last year and potentially the whole of my career– that all of us healing internally is the most critical factor we can pour into, invest in and then lean on, especially if the world is in chaos.
We wanted to start this year off with a powerful focus: Post Traumatic Growth. The podcast released on December 28, just before the new year, is with a longtime friend who is an expert in inspiring the “resilience quotient” that resides in all of us and is strategically and consistently making post traumatic growth the likely outcome in the wake of hard times.
I think we can all agree that hard times are inevitable. There’s never been a time in history where bad things didn’t happen to people and that (in many cases unintentionally) we did bad things to others. In both settings trauma exists and this trauma can spiral down into post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or any other mental health challenge.
So if bad things are ubiquitous in nature and are a part of life inherently, then we have to ask ourselves the question “why doesn’t every person in the world have post traumatic stress disorder?” or further “how do some people come out of trauma better than ever?”.
How do some people come out of some of the worst things that can happen to human beings more resilient, more adaptable and dare I say more successful (in their definition)?
There are some people who have a cancer diagnosis and say that diagnosis was “the best thing that ever happened to them”.
There are some people who have said 2020 has been “the best year of their life”.
This reminds me of one of our favorite families in the Future Generations community. One mother was referred to us by one of the more prominent OB/GYN’s in the county in my earlier years of practice and has since had four babies as a part of our practice.
After each pregnancy, delivery and arrival of an absolutely beautiful and adorable baby there has been a seriously traumatic event that most people would crumble under. When many of us would be stuck in the corner of our bedrooms crying our life away, I’ve witnessed this family rise and not just be stronger but also more connected as a unit, more engaged in their collective well-being, and maybe most importantly more conscious about their choices surrounding health and life.
Being someone who has suffered and healed from PTSD, I know firsthand what it’s like to start each day with a level of cynicism for life, impending doom and gloom and at the same time fill each day with mental, emotional and physical sedation.
I chose online poker, believe it or not.
I played so much the summer of 2005 after I left the army that I actually qualified for the World Series of Poker.
I’m a good poker player but I’m not that good. But that summer taught me that repetition and the habitual nature of the nervous system can be trained for anything. If I could do that… what else could I do?
During that same summer I started to learn about true health and wellness
… and chiropractic
… and yoga
… and meditation
… and eating whole foods
… and functional fitness
… and acupuncture
… and cleanses
… and homeopathy…
The list goes on and I can say with 100% certainty that 15 years later that list only grows.
I felt myself titrating in the good and healing habits and as my body healed naturally it didn’t crave the sedation, the poor diet, the binge drinking, the negative people, the poker, etc.
If you asked a crowd of your friends if they knew what PTSD was, they would assuredly know what it is and know someone who is suffering from it. But if you asked the same group of friends what post traumatic growth is, many would have no idea what it is and some would scoff at the idea.
This purpose of this blog is to assert to you that it is a biological fact of life itself that we are all neurobiologically, genetically and epi-genetically programmed for post traumatic growth. If a species persists on the planet, it must be programmed for greater resilience and adaptability.
We are in our 11th month of lockdown for a multitude of reasons.
We can go down the route of Bill Gates and the other technocratic leaders pulling the puppet strings orchestrating the continual oppression of the people and installation of a dystopian culture.
We can say the pharmaceutical industries are finally getting what they want – mandatory vaccination for adults and all humans globally.
We can say Google, Facebook and the other tech Giants are enslaving us to our devices.
We can say that the coronavirus is decimating the population globally.
I really don’t care at this stage who is doing what to whom. I care about how you are doing. YOU.
What I care about is you, your family and your community. I care about empowering you with the mindsets and skill sets that you will need to navigate whatever trauma you believe is happening in the world today.
At the beginning of all of this I invited you to guard your mind from the fear, hysteria and chaos. I suggested turning off your TV and mainstream media because they seem to get off on creating the exact thing that makes us the most immunologically vulnerable – fear. I suggested you stay as connected as possible to your loved ones because the isolation (especially at birth and at the end of life), is devastating for all of us.
We had several months of Operation Stay Healthy where we provided a lot of content many of you took to heart and are going to end 2020 healthier then when you started.
And throughout the year we provided you with data. Not just the death count or the cases where the numbers just go up and up and up along with the intended hysteria and fear as the media, your neighbor or your ‘doctor’ tells you that “{insert health habit} won’t SAVE YOU FROM THIS VIRUS”. As if doing nothing alongside isolating ourselves and hiding our faces are the ONLY things we can do.
As if the mask on the outside trumps the mask on the inside (ahem, your immune system).
We provided you with the foundational view of the landscape and how I critically think through challenges like this. Why?
Why did we spend a whole year doing that?
Because I know inherently that if you get this you can come out of the year more resilient, more adaptable and in most cases for all of you were vibrantly healthier than ever. Which is the first and most foundational line of defense against any trauma to your system.
So that’s what this year is going to be more intentional about. And let’s be intentional about 2021 being our best year yet BECAUSE of the fear, anxiety, and chaos that continues to persist.
There will be a rhythm of training and content this month to set the tone for the rest of the year.
The first step is knowing it’s possible. But I’ll take that further………. If you are alive on the planet, you have everything within you to come out of this healthier than when you started.
Why is this important? This is the foundation of human sovereignty. If you don’t have your health, you don’t have the ability to sustain living a life of depth, success and meaning.