Last Monday, I drove a couple of hours each way to hear Dr. Deed Harrison. He is recognized as one of the top spine researchers in the world. I not only applied his research to my spine, I applied his life to mine. He is applying to get a Ph.D. by portfolio. He presented 14 of the papers he has published over the last three decades.
One was significant for me personally. I have hyperlordosis in my lumbar spine. I have been working to straighten it. One of his papers was on morphology of the sacrum. There are four types recognized. Type 0 goes with a flattened lumbar spine. That is normal for that type. Types 1 and 2 go with a normal lumbar curve and represent about 67% of the population. My sacrum is Type 3. A deeper curve goes along with the Type 3 sacrum. I am already normal. That fact may be why I don’t have lower back pain.
More important, I realized that although I have great respect for what Dr. Harrison is doing, I have no desire to be like him. I don’t want to spend my life looking through research articles to determine what an ideal spine is. I’m more interested in the spiritual side of life. How can I be the best me?
I am interested in philosophy. I enjoy reading and writing or speaking my ideas. Dr. Harrison is a good example of what can result from publishing in academic journals. I decided to look at some philosophy journals to see what I could find.
Tuesday, I read an article on shame. The idea was that Adam and Eve hid from God because they were ashamed. The authors went on to say that Jesus was an example of how to deal with shame.
Tuesday night, my wife and I watched an episode of Inspector Ricciardi. The killer was blindfolding his victims to indicate that they were killed because of their shameful acts. Synchronicity. I love it.
I have begun the thought process for an article for that journal. Perhaps it is time for me to move more to philosophy and less to clinical practice.
Sometimes we see great examples of bad behavior and realize we don’t want to be like that. In the case of Dr. Harrison, he is a great example of good behavior. I want to be more like him academically, but not in his field.
That is how a great chiropractic researcher changed my life. I am changing my spine exercises. I am also sharpening my focus. Philosophy covers all aspects of life. How we think frames our reaction to life.
I’ve said that If I get one good idea out of a weekend seminar, I feel I got my money’s worth. I got two great ideas in two hours. Bonus!!