Blog

I’d like to share with you some wisdom I have learned from the great Stoic Philosopher, Marcus Aurelius. His “Meditations,” as they were posthumously named, can be very helpful at teaching how to control your perception & mental management in a way that will benefit your health, relationships, character, and pursuits.  The Art of Perception

“The impediment to action advances action.” Whatever stands in the way becomes the way. This persuades rationality when contemplating perceived barriers. We cannot view roadblocks as the end of a path because it is often these roadblocks that fuel the passion and creativity to advance.

In the sense of pain, the answer is not to halt all activity and wait until it ceases. The solution comes from the process itself. Determining what caused it in the first place, making necessary changes to prevent further deterioration, and taking steps to phyiscally improve and guarentee it doesn’t happen again. This is why we are constantly testing and retesting the effects of treatment during a session. This allows us to narrow down the most accurate diagnosis and beneficial therapies. 

“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” A major theme in the book is that we have the ability to control our own perceptions regardless of the situation. When something happens against our expectations, we can either complain and stir up disappointment, or we can turn our thoughts to more productive means. Which is called mental management. He emphasizes our risk of losing the present due to preoccupation and dwelling on the future or past.

Just applying this in my own life, I have benefited tremendously. I no longer find my self getting angry, envious, or disheartened becuase I know that reactive emotions serve no purpose. We must control the impulse to immediately assign value judgements. When we consider events as natural rather than good or bad, we no longer fall back on the inclination to start an emotional fire.

“Choose not to be harmed — and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed — and you haven’t been.” He teaches that in any scenario we must judge the situation objectively, willing accept the outcome, and unselfishly act moving forward. I really like the last part because I have too often seen anger used as a therapeutic tool without any regard for the collateral damage it causes.

Can you remember the last time you lashed out in a moment of frustration? Did berating the other party or breaking another item resolve it? That brief rush of power never rectifies the situation and may even dig at your integrity. “Does what’s happened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness, and all the other qualities that allow a person’s nature to fulfill itself?”

“For times whe you feel pain: See that it doesn’t degrace you, or degrade your intelligence-doesn’t keep you from acting rationally or unselfishly” 

And with that said, he also points out that to endure pain and prevail will deliver far better fortune than the path of surrenduring to the pain. This discipline of character pays dividends for your own mind and in the perspective of those around you. Another great Stoic, Epicurus, noted that ‘pain is neither unbearable nor unending, as long as you keep in mind its limits and don’t magnify them in your imagination.’

These are just a few bits of wisdom from the mind of a great philosopher. I can’t stress enough how beneficial this mindset and mental management can be when applied to all aspects of life. Harden your mind and soften your soul is my take away from most of it. We can achieve harmony by accepting God’s will and being disciplined in our perceptions and actions. 

Book Appointment Here

Visit our site

Many Blessing, 

Dr. Jack

The modern family needs modern health care solutions, so Cross-Upp Chiro created a Family Chiropractor center that helps them heal faster and feel ready for whatever life throws their way.

We are The Complete Chiropractic Experience that incorporates muscular release therapies and rehab with adjustments to enhance performance and fast track your recovery. At Family Chiropractor Cross-Up, we address your joints but also all the muscles, ligaments, vessels, and nerves around them because your pain isn’t an isolated process.

This is a one stop shop for care. Spine pain is common, but it is worth considering the arms and legs that transfer tension to it. Our combination of methods brings a new level of sophistication to Chiropractic that emphasizes pain free movement, stability, and endurance.

It is important to give you options when it comes to preserving or transforming your health. You are unique and all the events in your life, leading up to today, have tuned your body for a very specific lifestyle.

Sometimes we are so focused on the finish line that we forget how to manage our health in the meantime. For that reason, Cross-Up Chiropractic is here to give you and your children relief and solutions that your body needs to succeed.

Our services include physical pain management, lifestyle & nutritional counseling, exercise programming, comprehensive health assessments and home care plans. A true performance and Family Chiropractor health center.

Book Appointment Here

People are increasingly asking How Can a Chiropractor Help You? The answer may surprise you: In many more ways than you may think! That’s why Cross-up Chiro shares the possibilities with you.

The development of the Chiropractic profession has come such a long way of the past 10 years. We have seen this massive expansion of practice scope essentially meaning there are more ways we are “allowed” to help people. The Chiropractic and many other Health Care Professions are full of brilliant minds who continue to push the overton window with regards to giving patients’ all they need to live a healthy and enjoyable life.

Cross-Up Chiropractors embody exactly what so many hard working Doctors wished we would as they paved the way forward with new research, better tools, and a holistic mindset.

That is why we strive to be, for the most part, a one stop shop for family care and sports medicine. This form of Chiropractic provides more time for patient interaction and treatment that ultimately leads to quicker results too.

For many years Chiropractic has been seen as the spine people, and although the adjustment (spinal manipulation therapy) is still a tenant of our practice, we are experts in anatomy and physiology and the treatment of muscular, ligamentous, nerve, vessel, and lymphatic conditions. Quite frankly, these systems are almost always co-involved in the case of injury.

HERE, our method can be simply said with the following:

• First, by releasing tension and promoting circulation through muscular therapies, we eliminate the barriers of movement and ensure full range of motion.
• It is then through specific rehab that we balance supporting muscles to counter poor posture.
• Finally, we challenge the original area of complaint with previously painful activities to guarantee an improvement that will get you back to doing what you want, need, love, or desire to do without hesitation.

What kinds of tools do we use in this process:

• Active Release Therapy
• Acupuncture
• Adjustments
• Cupping
• Exercise/Biomechanics Training
• Gua Sha
• Fascial Flossing
• Compression and Vibratory Therapy

The answer to the question: How Can a Chiropractor Help You? is now much clearer. Let us help you get to the next level of your health. The road to feeling strong and resilient isn’t quick, but I bet it’s a heck of a lot faster with us at your side.

To set up your session with either of our Chiropractic Physicians, check out the link below.

Book Appointment Here

Autoimmunity has become a popular diagnosis in the past few years, but most doctors still don’t quite understand what it means. Autoimmunity is not just a single “disease” and shouldn’t be used as a blanket diagnosis when we can’t narrow down anything else. In fact, autoimmunity is a necessary and benign process that we need to clean up damaged and aging cells in the body. It is estimated that we generate a whole new body’s worth of cells every 7 years with the help of autoimmune activity.

Evidently, problems begin to occur when the immune cycle becomes chronically overactive in the context of uncontrolled inflammation. We now refer to autoimmunity as a spectrum because the process can be present for many years before the development of symptoms or full blown disease.

Brief review of the immune process

When faced with a toxin, our immune system fires up two main lines of defense: cytokines (first responders with pistols) and antibodies (military with heavy artillery). When the toxic exposure is too big for the first responders, our body sends in the military. The military antibodies may get rid of the invading toxin, but they create a bit of collateral damage in the process. At which point our body produces autoantibodies (secret spies) that are very specific and go to clean up the left over debris (damaged organ tissues).

So where does autoimmune disease come into the picture? 

It comes in when infectious agents, bacteria, or foods confuse the bodies immune system because they are structurally similar to human tissue. In other words, the antibodies we create to protect us from toxins can easily mistake and destroy parts of our body that look similar to the toxins. This is referred to as molecular mimicry.

For example, Gluten from wheat, rye, or barley can not be broken down sufficiently by our bodies because we simply don’t possess the enzymes to digest it. This causes the body to create antibodies to attack the undigested gluten molecule that we perceive as a ‘foreign invader.’ Unfortunately this foreign invader resembles a protein structure around the brain, so our antibodies begin to attack the brain as well!

Read more