The Wisdom of a Symptom

One of the things that initially drew me to chiropractic and something that I continue to appreciate to this day is the unique perspective on sickness and health that the philosophy of chiropractic can offer. It creates a different language and framework for some of the “whys” surrounding why some people get sick, and others stay well, when living in similar conditions.

I have recently exited what was close to one year of being off and on sick, culminating in an acute illness after taking an international family trip. While what I went through, from the standpoint of a conventional diagnosis, had some names, the longer-term one being Lyme disease and the acute illness being bacterial pneumonia secondary to a respiratory virus, I’m going to offer a different perspective. Not on what happened but on the why. In fact, I’m going to take a leap and say that a major factor in all illness is the result of us living incongruently. And that the purpose of the illness is to reconnect us with our center so that we can live more authentically. This is somewhat different when it comes to our children being ill, so for the sake of this article let us consider that we are talking about adults…or rather human beings who have relative autonomy.

Living incongruently and off our center doesn’t just mean physically, although it could. It goes much deeper than that. Living off our center is living in a way not in harmony with our highest values and ideals. Living less than the full version of ourselves. Subluxated.