Finding the Way Home: Life Expresses Intelligence
When I received the news that I had earned my CACCP (Certified by the Academy Council of Chiropractic Pediatrics) I burst into tears. Not because I was proud of accomplishing it, which I was – but because my training with the ICPA was the one major constant in my life—and it was, for now, complete. It was an ending that marked a new beginning.
I attended my first Webster Certification class 2016 with Dr. Jeanne Ohm after I had just learned I was pregnant with my second daughter. There was something so special about taking the Webster class and meeting Jeanne for the first time while I was in those sacred, early days of pregnancy. I didn’t know it, but life was about to throw me a series of curve balls—and the next few years would be the hardest of my life.
Shortly after Emmy was born I struggled with intense postpartum depression, marital problems and a broken foot. Amid the stress Emmy and I both developed pneumonia that recurred for the next two years; we even tried antibiotics, but the symptoms remained. After consistent chiropractic care and holistic measures, we finally healed. To say I was exhausted is an understatement.
One of the few things that kept me going, was having monthly ICPA seminars to show up to—keeping me focused on training and what really mattered to me—my children and helping other families through pediatric chiropractic care. It was the bright spot that kept me aligned and moving forward, and this was especially important when I became a single parent in 2020.
In a way, you could say that the ICPA saved my life – because had it not been for that social connection, support, and opportunity for continued focus & coherence with others, I’m not sure how I would have made it through those years.
How could a chiropractic program have such a profound impact?
It was the inspiring coursework, the meeting of like-minded colleagues, and the many ICPA teachers and chiropractors who became close friends. It was not feeling alone.
It was an ICPA teacher, John Edwards, in 2019, who, during the neurology section of his Perinatal class was able to discern an issue with my brain—and suggested an intensive chiropractic neurology program that changed my life. He also reminded me that my role as a person gets to come before my role as a chiropractor or teacher.
It was another instructor, Ian Shtulman, who I ran into during a seminar break, tears streaming under the stress of divorce and parenting. He stood with me while I caught my breath and told me I was in the right place, to feel it all, and to come back whenever I was ready.
In the fall of 2023, overwhelmed with single parenting and at my wits end, I decided to take a sabbatical from my chiropractic practice. I had been asked to give a speech at the ICPA Gathering (an in-person summit of pediatric chiropractors) in the spring of 2024, and decided it would be the last chiropractic presentation I would give. I planned to leave the profession, and felt proud to end my career on the ICPA stage, in front of the people who shaped and showed up for me the most.
I stood on that stage and froze. My eyes filled with tears as I made eye contact with so many mentors, friends, and teachers. Not just eye contact, soul contact. I’d never had that experience on stage before. It was family. It was love. I wish I could say it was enough to make me want to stay in practice and keep serving the families in my community, but it wasn’t. I was grateful, but ready to leave it all behind.
However, the intelligence of life was at work, as always. And it was another ICPA speaker, who, in a chance conversation, reignited my chiropractic flame, and then some, with his passion, philosophy, and insights.
People say there’s something special about the ICPA. And, I know it to be true. The ICPA doesn’t just train chiropractors to work with moms, babies, and families. We are a family. There’s a magic in that—and so many powerful, heart-centered, brilliant-minded people all coming together for the common good, and to enjoy life together along the way.
We learn through experience —and there is no better learning ground than the ICPA family. There are no better chiropractors than ICPA-trained chiropractors. And this organization, its mission, and the people in it have saved me, in so many ways, time and time again. It’s been 8 years since my first ICPA class—and the home I have found here—the home it has created within myself and my practice—has shaped my life, my parenting, my relationships, and who I know myself to be.
It’s my ICPA family that has shown up and helped me home—to myself and the profession I love.
Family isn’t just a group of people you’re born into. It’s the ones you grow with. There’s something greater than you at work—a living intelligence—holding everything together, elevating and guiding it all. There’s a shared responsibility, an honor, a legacy, a sacred trust. Every person plays an important, integral part in strengthening the whole, and when we veer off course, we can count on the energy of the family around us to bring us back into coherence; to remind us of our authentic self and our soul’s song. It’s the most precious part of life—and I’ve never been more grateful. In the moments I have felt most alone, I can look back and see the many, many ways my chiropractic family was holding me through.
I recently found an old journal entry from 2017 that read: “I will always come home, here, to chiropractic.” As I come out of this sabbatical, it’s my ICPA family that has shown up and helped me home—to myself and the profession I love. Jeanne Ohm, who guided the ICPA and so many of us, was right, all along. Of course she was. Life expresses intelligence, and we can trust it. It’s a friendly universe, and through each other, through family, we remember our song, and we will always find our way home.
