Runner feet sunrise
I don't know about you, but I doubt that you enjoy pain anymore than I do. After all, do you look forward to being in discomfort? Yet, if you stop and think about it, pain is a gift. It tells us that there is a challenge, a hiccup or something wrong somewhere.
C.S. Lewis is the famous author of The Chronicles of Narnia, which was made into a movie not long ago. He also wrote a book called "The Problem of Pain". He explained in the book how pain is actually a gift and is necessary to help re-direct us in every area of our life.
If you are in the kitchen and the stove is red-hot, it is a good warning signal to you that if you touch it, it will cause you pain. If you did not have the ability to feel pain, you might accidentally put your hand on the stove and burn it severely.
In the past couple of years, many chiropractors have experienced pain in their personal finances, due to the recession. Perhaps that is an indicator that there is something wrong with the way we look at or handle our office, the marketing, our financial situation. There is NO longer such a thing as job security or financial security. There is always some unknown mitigating circumstance that could happen that would cause us to look at our financial picture in an entirely different light.
If there is pain in a personal relationship, the pain is alerting us to the fact that something is wrong. Maybe counseling is needed, or perhaps someone needs to wake up to the way they are behaving or treating other people. Unfortunately, many times that is not realized until someone walks out of the relationship. However, pain is a good thing because it indicates that a failure has occurred and that something needs to change. The same holds true in your practice. If a patient leaves you, before the end of their treatment schedule, that should alert you to the fact that something is wrong. Yes they felt 'better', but apparently you didn't do diligence in educating them on regular chiropractic care.
I am not a sadistic person. I do not wake up every morning thinking, "Oh, boy, I look forward to having pain in my life today!" I do not like pain any more than you do. I simply want all of us to understand that pain is not a bad thing and we're all going to have some. But I will tell you this. It is like a "red flag" waving to get our attention so that we can understand that something has gone wrong.
When you are driving your car and a little red light comes on in the dash panel, it is a warning signal. It is a "pain" signal! It is telling you that something is wrong and that you need to quickly do something about it. If you fail to heed the warning, it may not be long before you find yourself standing on the side of the road! When you pay attention to your car and maintain it properly, getting the oil changed, rotating the tires, keeping the front-end aligned; it will cooperate with you and take you anywhere you want to go. But, if you do not pay attention to the needs of your car, sooner or later, the red light will come on and let you know of your failure. When we recognize that pain is a good thing, we can immediately allow it to put us back on course and help us go in the right direction.
Isn't that how our body works as well, are you educating your patients on that? And how drugs don't fix the problem but just cover up the symptom, how drugs lead to more drugs and ultimately to total failure of the system. Talk to your patients about pain and what it means.
And the next time you experience "pain" in your life, don't run from it, don't reject it, and don't blame someone else for it. Determine the source of your pain and decide what you can do to make your business, your personal life, or your financial life better by acting in a way that relieves the pain and keeps you from failing any longer in that area. That is my approach. It is working for me and I know it will work for you, too!
