Can You Remember Why?

I wanted to write about this topic this week as it is something that has come up for a lot of people I have been working with and talking to recently.

There is a loss of purpose, a feeling of burn out and a wonder if all the effort is really worth it?

Following the past year, it has been hard for business and in particularly for Chiropractors. With much of the common narrative around health challenging our world views and opinions. Being encouraged to keep our opinions quiet and just aim to keep our businesses going.

Now while many of you have thrived, some have struggled. But all of us have had our congruency tested. Our actions have not always been in alignment with our values and as such there is an inner torment, like a dripping tap that plays on our mind.

So, what can we do? How do we find that focus and that purpose again?

My suggestion is to reconnect with your why, what inspired you to start your practice, what initiated the thought of studying chiropractic and what was it that got you jumping out of bed in the morning just over a year ago?

If you struggle with this, then there certainly has been a sustained anxiety with work and life, that diminishes our ability to find that passion. It is simple emotion really. When we study human emotion we find that each emotion has an equal and opposite emotion.

Like a pin wheel, with all the emotions running around it, from love to happiness, depression to fear. If you were to draw a line through the wheel from one side to the other, you would find the opposite emotion from where you started.

For the vast majority, the overriding emotion we have been under over the last year is ‘anxiety’, that worry of the unknown and fear of the future out of our control. Anxiety plagues our ability to think clearly, to dream and to be inspired.

The beautiful thing is, that two opposing emotions can not co-exist, that means that we cannot be in a state of anxiety when we are focused on its opposite. And the opposite of anxiety is gratitude.

Gratitude is the art of being thankful. What are you thankful or grateful for and when was the last time you stopped to focus on that? Now to really make this stick and to change our physiology, we must practice gratitude at a particular time of day. That is first thing in the morning or last thing at night. The reason for this, is that we are in a different brain wave state, we are in our alpha and theta states. This is when we are most suggestable and receptive to change.

Therefore, if you are struggling to move through the anxiety of the past year, if you are worried about the future or lacking your purpose. Stop.

Each morning and evening, take 5 minutes to think about all the things you are grateful for? This simple practice done over time will change your emotional default and bring you back to the inspired and purposeful state that you set out on when you first decided to be the change in people’s lives.

Your community needs you now more than ever, and if you are reading this, I know you are that beacon of light for so many. I have a saying that is so true for you as you read this. “You have the power in your voice and in your hands to change the world”. Start today by focusing back in, on you, on what you have, to be grateful for. And once your cup is full and your fire is burning again, take that out to the world, to your people, to your practice and community. They need you.

Today is not repeated tomorrow.

With love

Tom