This week I was rushing around the kitchen, and I managed to chop the end off my finger!
My first reaction was to try and not let out any expletives that would have been immediately repeated by my three-year-old, Henry. Then secondly, find a plaster. As I was grumpily crashing around, Henry smiled at me and said, “Do not worry Daddy, your finger will heal itself.” My grumpiness immediately went, as I realised that said three-year-old had just come out with one of the founding principles of chiropractic; as BJ Palmer said in the 1920s, “the power that made the body, heals the body.” Our bodies all contain an innate wisdom controlled by our central nervous system. This innate knowledge knows when we are unwell causing us to develop a fever to kill the virus, and luckily for me, my body knew to send clotting factors to my finger to form a scab and begin the healing process. As chiropractors, our principal job is to restore normal movement to the joints primarily in the spine, thus allowing our spine and brain to communicate properly; when this occurs, our body’s own healing ability will allow healing to occur. As any good chiropractor will tell you, they have never healed a patient, they have, instead, helped the patient function optimally and so allow them to heal themself, just as my finger has begun to do. So, thank you Henry for reminding me of this and reminding me how amazing our bodies are, and what incredible abilities they have to heal when given the right time and environment to do so.