chiropractic – Page 6 – We Only Get One Chance

I AM HONORED

I am honored.

Getting “written up” as a child was not such a good thing. Getting “written up” as an adult is quite a compliment. I am honored to be part of a Today’s Chiropractic Leadership online in a section called “Innovators and Entrepreneurs”

To read the article, click >>>THIS LINK<<<

I am honored to be acknowledged in the same section and on the same page as some of my greatest mentors.

I am honored to be considered worthy enough to grace the pages with some of the greatest and most influential world changers.

I am honored to be on the same page with some of my good friends and colleagues.

I am honored to be respected and acknowledged by LIFE University, the world’s largest and most influential college in the chiropractic profession.

I am honored to be able to serve Fenton, the community I grew up in.

If you are reading this, I am honored to be part of your life in some way big or small.

I am honored that you have allowed me to serve your family and check and adjust your babies.

I am honored I have been the one called to your bedside as your are delivering your babies or are within minutes of bringing them into this world because you understand how important that first adjustment is.

I am honored to be part of such an incredible profession, one that assists with core healing from deep within.

I am honored with every single referral you send and have sent my way.

I am honored to be chosen as an instrument to facilitate healing and be able to use my head, hands and heart as my tools.

I am honored to own and run my beautiful office Cafe of LIFE Chiropractic.

I am honored to have such an incredible team working with me on a daily basis.

I am honored that my own family visits me to get their spines checked on a regular basis.

I am honored to be your chiropractor.

HUMILIATED

I am absolutely humiliated!

A patient walked into the Cafe of LIFE last Wednesday afternoon and asked me where I was earlier that day and why I wasn’t here when my office hours said I would be here.

“What do you mean? I am always here for our office hours Wednesday morning is 7:30a-10a.”

“That is not what your business card says.”

When we looked closer, our business cards have our office hours as “7:30am-1pm”. For months.

Sometimes when reviewing a proof for those kinds of things, the brain will look at something, skim right over an error and make up something completely different. That is exactly what happened.

So in essence it has looked like we just high-tail it out of here whenever we feel like it on Wednesday during that time slot. And if you know me like most of you do by now, I would NEVER do that.

She continued, “Yeah I was talking to my mom and she said ‘well she must just come and go as she pleases.’ You really don’t seem like that kind of a person to me.”

Um…I am NOT that kind of a person and I am not that kind of professional! I feel a lot of responsibility to all of you and there are a lot of people that rely on us. I was born with punctuality and responsibility woven into my fabric, that is just how I am.

So needless to say we looked over all our thousands of card that I ordered just a couple months ago and realized they were all wrong. In the meantime, every person that has come into this office, we always tell them, “Make sure to grab a card at the front desk, our hours are on the back.”

OH. MY. GOODNESS. I am seriously humiliated.

Yes I am only human and there are humans involved in the making and printing process of these things and mistakes can happen.

And by now I am sure you can imagine just how very GRATEFUL I am to this lady who brought this mistake to my attention!!!

The last thing I want to do is look like a slacker, and especially when I am not.

To all of you out there reading this that we may have confused and misled, I apologize and am so humiliated. Live and learn, right? You can bet I will have many different sets of eyes on all future materials like that.

BVI SAILING PICTURE DIARY

In order to have seen many of the pictures of our BVI sailing trip, you would have to have been a friend of mine on Facebook or have come into the Cafe of LIFE. There are quite a few asking about my trip so I wanted to put together a little BVI Sailing Picture Diary for you to take a glance at some of what we did with our 10 days on our sailboat Yacht Emily Morgan.

These are my friends, some really good friends that I have traveled with often. They all live in Denver and are all chiropractors…and have been trying to get me to move out west since I moved home 11 years ago. I met all of them in 2001 within the first week of starting chiropractic college at Life University in Atlanta, GA. I love each of them for what they add to my life, my being and the level of joy and laughter daily, even when we are not together.

These are my feet and this is the front of the boat. The entire trip was absolutely beautiful, as you can tell, and this was such an awesome spot to take it all in.

Christmas morning, we are in the midst of our white elephant gift exchange and I ended up with a selfie-stick which I was totally stoked about!!! My friends, Marco and Scott, and to the right in the picture, is Bones, the owner of the ship, host extraordinaire, comedian, dance instructor, master sailor. We got lucky to be on this boat with him and his wife!!

Later on that day using said “selfie-stick”…

…and then I realized that I hardly needed any friends to take my pictures or be in my pictures because I now had a SELFIE STICK!!!! I am only kidding…that is not really true, we all need our friends.

Then one day Bones took us knee-boarding on the back of the dinghy. It has been since June 24, 1998 since I have been knee-boarding. I remember the date so clearly because I ended up breaking my nose out on Lake Ponemah (a whole different blog post to share that story, maybe). It was super fun to be knee-boarding and of course I can’t help but always try to see what’s still possible on that thing. Here is me doing my best rendition of “Hey Mom!!! Look at me!!!” …only my Mom wasn’t anywhere around. 🙂

Emily Morgan hauls around these paddleboards we could take out anytime we wanted. So much fun although I am not sure I used them all that much. This trip became quite a sedentary trip actually.

But while we were sitting around all day, we would see such BEAUTIFUL rainbows!!! Spectacular rainbows and a few of them each day. I know this picture may not even seem real but this was shot with just an iPhone camera, no zoom. Crazy beautiful place!!!

And while I am at it, enjoy these two beautiful pictures!

Sundown time was some of the coolest lighting of the entire day. I think coupled with the sway of sitting on the boat and about to eat some of the most delicious food, it became our most favorite part of each day.

…it was time for another selfie… 🙂

After the first few days of strictly being only on the boat, we began to crave being on land and would dinghy into shore and get grounded for a few minutes. Sometimes we would find beautiful beaches to hang out on but mostly we just needed to not be moving, swaying and rocking for a few minutes.

I LOVED learning about sail physics and helping with to put sails up and take them down. The greatest part of our trip is our hosts could completely handle the boat themselves and so we could choose how much we wanted to participate in crewing the boat minute by minute. I just loved the raising and lowering of the sails, literally the mechanism that was catching the wind and moving us around these islands…how freakin’ cool is that?!?!?! I am still in awe of how it all works and am excited to find a sailing vessel of some sort this coming summer…maybe windsurfing. Yeah, that sounds about right for me.

This is a picture of my room. These 2 bunk beds that were available to me and I ultimately found that the top one had the best air flow. I do not sleep well when my body is moving (in the car, on a plane and apparently not on a boat either). Aside from a sedentary 10 days, sleeping was the only other downfall of being on the sailboat for me. I am particular about sleep and need certain pillows and support and position and basically the only way to sleep in this bed was to tie up a hammock up to the wall at the head and foot of the bed to keep from rolling out at night as the boat rocks in the waves. This took a while to get used to and then once I was home, it took a while to get use to being in a bed that was not moving. It is interesting to watch the brain try to adapt to all of that!

This is how our days were spent…sitting, sailing and chatting. This particular group of friends are what I consider “growth friends”. We are always presenting ideas, talking things over, offering each other perspective and solving the problems of the world…well our own small worlds if you want to be particular.

Another incredible evening anchored in some beautiful place, rocking in the waves, chatting about the day and prepping to wind down for the night.

New Year’s Eve was spent on the island of Jost Van Dyke at a world famous bar called Foxy’s. It is amazing that among the 3,000 people at this party that I can be dancing around the place and come across a sticker of one of the businesses, Unlimited Offroad, here in Fenton, MI. It amazes me to be thousands of miles away and have evidence of Fenton’s greats right in front of me!!

These guys…the greatest!!!

And these two, Bones and Anna and their beautiful boat Emily Morgan, exceptional is not even the word great enough for them. 24 hours per day for 10 solid days with 6 demanding goofballs in their home…I have no idea how they endure something like that. This is the moment stepping off the boat and parting ways after our 10 days. We were truly like a big happy family with them and we all miss them. You can see in their smiles and in their energy fields, even after 10 FULL DAYS, they have the biggest servants hearts of any people I have seen in a while. Our trip was as amazing as it was due mostly to them. Look them up if ever you are looking to have an exceptional vacation!

So that concludes the BVI sailing picture diary. If think I covered the trip thoroughly as I also strongly believe that pictures tell the best stories. Until next time…I am still “Sailing the Scene, 2016!”

WHAT SHOULD I EAT?

“Hey Doc!!! What should I eat???” I have gotten this question so many times over the past few weeks at the Cafe of LIFE that I wanted to answer it in a much bigger way and really put some information out there for you.

There are so many concepts of this food is good, and that food is bad, and that and that is bad, and this is good. Where does one even start???????? And you might be thinking and asking that same question and maybe you have been asking these questions for a long time now.

Should I eat meat or be a vegetarian?
What about being a vegan? What about red meat? And eggs or just egg whites?
How about that gluten stuff?
What about corn? And soy? And sugar? Should I have dairy?

I do not have all the answers. I am not a nutritionist. I do however have A LOT of years of trial and error of my own, worked with patients and have done a TON of research, seminars and have been learning and learning and learning as I go.
Here are a few tips on how to determine what to eat:

EAT FOODS WITH ONE INGREDIENT: This is what my diet consists of and most of it is vegetables. What do I mean when I say ONE ingredient? Well when you look at a cucumber for instance, it is just a cucumber. I doesn’t have any additives, it hasn’t been processed and is just the thing that grew from the ground. Chicken and fish are just that, chicken and fish, just one simple ingredient, and baked or broiled, delicious. Sweet potato is just one ingredient. Lettuce, tomato, rice, oats, apple, orange…you get the picture. Cracker, for instance, is usually some sort of flour mixed with something else and baked and they added salt and probably high fructose corn syrup and all other kinds of things. So when you sit down at the table to eat your meal, how many ingredients are in the stuff on your plate? Eat more WHOLE FOODS, more items that are just the food itself, just ONE ingredient.

EAT LOTS OF PLANTS: Each time we look down at our plate and are about to eat a meal, I suggest more than half of your plate should be plants or the product of plants and is considered a PLANT BASED DIET. I am not recommending a vegan or vegetarian diet, although I do have my own good and bad experiences, that is completely up to you. You can decide if meat is right for you and which meats you choose to eat. When choosing meats, clean, organic, grass fed animals is what you want to choose. How do they grow and what do they eat when given their natural environment. So many of the meats have been mass produced at overcrowded farms. Not good. And if you are eating the meats, skip the sauces and figure out some herbs that you can use for flavor. When I say I recommend is a PLANT BASED DIET, that just means load your plate up with the vegetables and then a clean protein. In other words, consume lots of live things that grew from the ground.

PROTEIN, FAT and FIBER: One of my mentors has done away with the idea of PROTEIN, FAT and CARBOHYDRATES and has replaced the last part of that with FIBER. This goes back to getting our actual carbs from FIBER, mainly vegetables and some fruits. When we have the word “carbohydrate” on the back of a package and we know we need a certain amount of carbohydrate per day, we will give ourselves an excuse to eat some food that is not beneficial to us. This doesn’t mean that we can get our carb allowance for the day from some sort of processed food and call it the same as eating a sweet potato, oats or brown rice, it doesn’t work like that. Fiber keeps our digestive system clear and moving, keeps our blood sugar regulated and it should be the key ingredient when you go to choose your carbohydrates for the day. Let’s think about replacing the word “carbohydrate” with “FIBER” and make our choices be a lot more vegetables and a whole lot healthier.

EAT HEALTHY FATS: In this culture we have gotten to a point that we are primarily driven by sugars. Our body is breaking down sugars as an energy source and we really need to revert back to breaking down fats. If the body is constantly able to just use sugars and carbohydrates as energy source, we don’t get to the powerful energy source which is fat. When the body switches back over and starts burning fats for energy, it will start to burn more body fat and melt that right off the body as well.
How do we go about switching our bodies from sugar burners over to fat burners? Start adding super healthy fats into your diet when you need a little energy boost and at the same time
limit your sugar and carb intake. Some ideas for healthy fats are avocado, coconut and coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, whole eggs, fatty fish like salmon, fish oil or flax seed oil supplement or a little bit of dark chocolate.

DRINK MORE WATER: Water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water. Period.

In the end, our diet doesn’t need to be and probably should’t be exciting. Food is for nourishment and what I have noticed over the years, for myself and my patients, is that the cleaner and simpler it is, the more nourishing it is and the better the body feels.

The question, “What should I eat?”, I hear it a lot. There is no “one size fits all” recipe for life. In sharing this, I hope the simplicity helps a bit and helps you realize that the choices we make today effect us right away…but the long term cumulative effects of good choices really adds to our overall quality of life now and especially down the road. The name of this blog is “We Only Get One Chance” and we may as well treat our body in a way that our one time around is the healthiest it can possibly be.

SAILING THE SCENE 2016

My good friends that I often travel with and I spend a bit of time during our holiday travel together to set intentions for the New Year and come up with a rhyming theme. We finalized this year with intentions of “Sailing the Scene 2016″.
I am not sure why we feel it so important to rhyme the theme as that limits options for words used, however we always seem to be up for the challenge and come out on top year after year!!!
We had been just a couple days on the boat, and watched the sail boat take a Universal Force, the wind, and set sails appropriate to make it to the desired destination, and we absolutely knew right then and there that the word “sailing” had to be part of our theme. Life throws us all kinds of twists, turns and unexpected weather and gusts that throw a curve ball into our original plan regularly, or at least it does for me. It also can appear that every move and turn we make we are heading into the wind. Such is life!
What sailing taught all of us is that we need to use whatever external forces that seem to be working against us, and if we just change the configuration of our sails, change the angles or the heights, we can figure out a way to use that external force in our favor.

Whether we realize it our not, we have all set up “the scene” that surrounds us. Consciously or unconsciously, we have chosen the people we surround ourselves with, the work we do, the home we live in, the car we drive, the thoughts that run through our heads, as well as all other circumstances that make up our scene. Look around you…at some point that person, place or thing seemed like a good idea (or maybe was just the lesser of two evil choices). So here we are in the environment we created. That is the “the scene” we are talking about.

Now, take another look around you and ask yourself this question, “What am I resisting in my scene and how am I resisting it?” Is it a job you don’t like? Is it a relationship that doesn’t flow? Is it a body that you are not particularly fond of? Is it a home environment that is filled with chaos? What is it? What is around you that you have resistance to? And maybe you don’t have any of those things, although most of us could name one or two…or twenty.

“Sailing the Scene” means to take a different and more graceful perspective or make a slight change in your course. Instead of feeling “stuck” in a situation, a relationship, a job, a body where it always feels like you are working with a 30 naught
headwind, what if you took a different angle. To turn 180 and head downwind would be one solution but life doesn’t often allow us to take a 180 degree turn and head the other direction. Usually we could more easily “tack” or head in a slightly different angle into the wind. This allows the sails to catch the wind a little bit differently and use it to the advantage in getting to the desired destination. And when we make just a slight angle change to our normal day to day, 2-3 days leads to 2-3 weeks and then on to 2-3 months or years and we have real potential of making a desirable change in our lives and creating a more likable scene.

“Tacking” also is a way of taking the Universal Force of the wind and let it help you get to the desired destination. It is a way to work with it instead of fighting against it and allowing it to really work for you.

“Sailing the Scene 2016” is all about taking all of life and all of every day and starting to adjust our view, our perspective and/or our course in order to get life to be a little more cooperative, or really maybe we are the ones being more flexible and cooperative with life. Either way, sailing is one of the most peaceful experiences and I am looking for more of that this year. Cheers to 2016!!!

NOBODY IS EXEMPT

Daily, for over 10 years, I have been helping people to increase their health and internal resilience through my job as a Doctor of Chiropractic. Aside from keeping the nerve system free of interference, the chiropractic adjustment, there are NATURAL LAWS OF THE BODY that need to be followed in order to be healthy and remain that way…and nobody is exempt. It doesn’t matter how old or young you are, in order to be healthy, you have to do the following:

EAT WELL.

MOVE WELL.

THINK WELL.

REST WELL.

Some of you are doing an exceptional job at committing to health and I don’t want to make a blanket statement but I do want to review what is necessary.

Let’s start with the first…EAT WELL. The body heals by replacing cells. The body and all the cells in it are replaced on a regular basis. The body grows new cells by the building blocks you ingest. Ingest a bunch of junk and you will have weak structure and usually a lot of inflammation. Ingest good healthy food and you will have strong building blocks to construct your cells. AND DRINK YOUR WATER!!! Every single day, yes ALL OF THE DAYS, EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE, you need to DRINK WATER. It doesn’t matter how old or young you are, in order to be healthy you have to EAT WELL AND DRINK WATER and nobody is exempt.

Second thing you need to do daily…MOVE WELL. The body is built to move. Every joint in the body is nourished through movement. If we were supposed to be sedentary we would not have nearly as many joints in our bodies. Circulation increases when you move your body and with that oxygen increases as well. Circulation is how nutrients and oxygen are transported though the body and delivered to all organs, tissues, muscles and glands. Muscles also need to be moved and stretched every single day. It doesn’t matter how old or young you are, in order to be healthy you have to MOVE WELL EVERY SINGLE DAY and nobody is exempt.

Our quality of life is determined largely by our attitude towards it. Wake up with a smile or wake up with a frown, it is going to set the tone for your entire day. The days add up to weeks, weeks add up to months and then years and life goes by rather quickly. Life is only a fraction of what happens to us, and mostly our reaction to it. Be grateful. Even when things don’t seem to be going your way, be grateful for something. Take some time to express gratitude silently to yourself and maybe even out loud to those around you. It doesn’t matter how old our young you are, in order to be healthy you have to THINK GOOD THOUGHTS IN YOUR LIFE and nobody is exempt. Chiropractor Fenton Michigan Smiling Flower

Have you ever really taken time to think about sleep? At night, we literally leave this conscious state and step off to some place while our physical body rests. Sometimes this is to dreamland and sometimes it is quiet and
uneventful. Either way, we sleep. Our body shuts down and goes into restoration mode. It is a time for rebuilding, regrouping, integrating and healing and our bodies require it. Every. Single. Day. It doesn’t matter how old our young you are, in order to be healthy you have to REST WELL, take some down time and rest and nobody is exempt.

Patients come to the Cafe of LIFE Chiropractic Center every week for over 10 years and I help them through the chiropractic adjustment. The greatest thing about chiropractic care is that the adjustment helps keep the body connected to it’s power source, the brain and nerve system, and allows it to do everything it is supposed to do, better and more efficiently. I also do my best to help my patients understand the NATURAL LAWS OF THE BODY. I ask things like “How much sleep have you had lately?” and “How much exercise have you gotten today? This week?” and “How much water have you drank today? This week?” and “What are you doing to handle stress in your life?”

Some reply a resounding “YES! LOTS!!” and I realize that so many are committed to their own health. However, some reply with answers that DO NOT follow the NATURAL LAWS OF THE BODY as described above. These are not laws I just made up…this is really serious business and involves your body and your life.

WE HAVE TO DO WHAT WE KNOW WE NEED TO DO IN ORDER TO BE HEALTHY AND THAT’S IT!!!

There are no shortcuts.

There is no easy way.

There is no magic pill.

I talk about water on most of your visits because the importance of being properly hydrated is underestimated. But now you have to go out there into your life and DRINK YOUR WATER!!! You have to, that is all there is to it.

I love you and this is why I am expressing to you the fact that it doesn’t matter how old or young you are, in order to be healthy you have to FOLLOW THE NATURAL LAWS OF THE BODY and NOBODY IS EXEMPT!!!! Got it? Now get out there and get to work!!! 🙂

LACE CURTAINS

I moved into my home over 4 years ago. If you have even been to my home or driven by, you may have noticed the lace curtains in the window at the front of the house (although more than likely you have not, they are unremarkable). I am not a fan of lace curtains.

I have a very different style to my home and my practice that doesn’t really fit with lace curtains.

So let me explain…this particular lace-covered window is above my 2-car garage. There is an unfinished bonus room above my garage currently being used for storage. It has 2 nice sized windows, one at the front by the driveway and one towards the back that faces house. The one on the driveway side is the one with the lace curtains, nothing on the other.

For the first few years I lived there, I hadn’t give those lace curtains a lot of attention. I would see them when I pulled in and out of my garage, however aside from that, they are not on my mind at all. They are just sort-of there.

Over the past couple years, I have noticed them as the last thing I see when I leave and the first thing when I pull back into my driveway. They are pretty, harmless and unremarkable.

But they are not me. Not at all.

For the past 2 years, I have tried to figure out what window coverings I should replace those with. What color should I put there? Should it have some sort of texture? Should it give you a hint to textures and colors used in the house? Should they just be plain white like the siding on that part of the house? Should they be loud and obnoxious? Should they be long or short? I am not a designer, but I have a feel that I always go for with my home and work spaces and these silly curtains had raised a lot of questions.

It is also one of those things that I need to be able to feel out, one of those things that I needed to try out a couple different colors and textures to know for sure. But who really wants to go to the store and buy a few different options and drive in and out of the driveway until I got it right??? Not me!

In the past 6 weeks I have started to do some research. There are a lot of homes with that same bonus room/window set-up above the garage (and maybe now that I mention it, you will notice it yourself). My research consisted of driving around and seeing what other people have done with said window.

My private research has shown that most leave that window uncovered. It isn’t a room that you would need to block the world out of. It also is a place that there is not enough light on a regular basis to make out anything but silhouettes of what is being stored, which is no big deal.

So I didn’t want to completely commit to uncovered windows after being covered for so many years, so I went up there and pulled the curtains all the way to the side so that they appeared uncovered from the outside. And I have now been driving in and out of my garage and have a huge smile on my face because of how many years I have pondered this silly decision.

It is funny to me because this entire time I had always wanted to just replace the covering and change the look of it all and had never once, prior to just 6 weeks ago, ever even considered that idea.

I think it is funny how the mind works like that sometimes…it wants to replace every little thing in life instead of just getting rid of it altogether. I have noticed this lately in my life as I am getting more minimalist (Mom, I never said I am a true minimalist, just better with less) with the things I have in my home all the way down to my wardrobe and shoes. I do not have to replace stuff with more stuff, and so many times it just feels better to dump it than to add more.

I am super grateful for this new perspective. I am also really grateful to have made a final decision and allowing full sunlight in that bonus room. It is the silliest place to learn a life lesson, I had no idea I could learn so much from those lace curtains.

MY HOUSE

Many people are asking about my house.

Back in the beginning this year I wrote a blog called “I’m Not Crazy” about how, in spite of all kinds of different ideas and opinions everyone has about moving from a lake home, I had plans to sell my house.

I think it is so interesting how life works sometimes.

Very shortly following that final decision to sell, I met a really interesting man. Most of you know that I have been single and dating for years, sometimes what seems like years and years. This guy came into my life and just a couple weeks later I got a great offer on my home. He and I were playing with the idea of keeping the house in case we Chiropractor Fenton Michigan My House went the distance together. It was so early in our relationship that we really didn’t know much about our future. It got down to the wire of having to counter the offer or take the house off the market. As the minutes ticked by, I was in sheer panic trying to figure out if I should really sell and move on or keep it and stay put.

As the final minute to counter that offer approaches, I pulled the house off the market. It was a heart-centered decision about my life I was ultimately really happy with my choice. The couple that had made the offer came up with another offer meeting me half way from their original offer and the asking price. My response remained “it is not on the market anymore.” Then they came within $3,000 of full asking price…but I remained happy with my choice.

That particular gentleman and I didn’t end up going the distance. However, months later, I am still so grateful for him being in my life at that moment when that decision needed to be made.

Today I sit and write to you while overlooking the lake. It is fall and it is time to get the boats out of the water, roll up the docks, and batten down the hatches to take on Old Man Winter. I face west and that unencumbered west winter wind is absolutely brutal from here most of the time. I have a few new windows ordered to replace some old cabin windows, some insulation and other fall chores to be done and a new incredibly sweet handyman in my life ready and willing to help me tackle it all. For all of that and so much more, I am grateful.

Life takes twists and turns and I have chosen that, instead of trying to force decisions, I can get quiet, look around, listen to my inner voice, check in with my heart and make that next step.

From what I mentioned above, I am sure your mind goes to the question of “Is that ‘incredibly sweet handyman’ going to be it for me?” I can say one thing for sure…for right now, I am so very grateful for his presence in my life. That is all I know.

Seems as soon as I try to make some sort of plan for my future; home, relationship or otherwise, I get blind-sided and spun around in a completely different direction. For now, what I am certain about is that I am staying in my house.

When you look back on your life, can you see key moments and people or experiences that significantly changed the course of the path your life was moving on? Boy, I do. It is sometimes so hard to see through all the energy of the moment, however in retrospect it seems 20/20. For now I will sit back in my house, breathe, have gratitude and trust the next move will be obvious when it needs to happen.

SWEET SWEET SEPTEMBER

As I was on a 3 mile walk near my home this evening, I was thinking I don’t know if I ever remember a sweeter September in Michigan than what we are experiencing this year. I love the fall and am totally in love with this sweet, sweet September.

Do you remember ever having more sunshine than what we have had lately? I think it has rained maybe a few hours total for this entire month. Chiropractor Fenton Michigan September

The nights are cool now, the mornings are crisp and it is so refreshing.

But there is so much more to this sweet sweet September than just the weather and I do not know many people who actually enjoy talking about the weather.

September marks a time of year when things begin to “normalize”. Most of that is our schedules with school starting and getting the family back to some sort of “normal” routine. Serving this community in my office, Cafe of LIFE Chiropractic, on a weekly basis magnifies so much of the community energy. August, and the preparation for school to start, brings a frenzied energy. There is always such anticipation about the year ahead and what it will bring. So many questions run around in everyone’s head and it shows up in their physiology…Who will be my teacher this year? Will I have the right clothes? I wonder if my friends will be in my class? I wonder if I will get “that” student the other teachers are warning everyone about? I wonder how my sports team will do? .…all of these unknowns and so much more adds into the already heightened energy of August.

In the past, September has hit like a ton of bricks and it has often taken a long time for people to settle into their routines. But this sweet sweet September feels very different. It feels like we were all ready for that shift back to routine and school and work. Of course our busy schedules have brought October on us so quickly it is difficult to believe that will be next week.

And when speaking about sweet sweet September, we cannot forget about college football of course! College football games are usually attended wearing lots of layers and drinking warm drinks…but not in September and especially not this September. Beautiful, sunshine filled Saturdays at the football stadiums with the smells of fall in the air, does it get any sweeter than that?!?!

So as I am walking this evening and admiring absolutely everything about this beautiful place I call home, I am thinking to myself “I don’t remember a sweeter September than this one, and I am sure grateful to be awake and alive today to experience it!”

I certainly hope you have been able to get out and play in the sunshine with your families. Within just a few weeks, winter will be moving in and I am definitely not banking on seeing another sweet sweet September quite like this one. We get to live this one time…put some of those “have to’s” aside for a few more days and get out there and make the most of it!!!

LIVING FULLY

To me, living fully is the most important concept in running my daily life.

If I get an invite somewhere, I take it.

If I get an opportunity to do something, I say yes and make it happen.

If I have an idea, I try it on and see if I can make it work.

To live fully is to take every opportunity to say “yes” and explore life!

When we got orders to go to Anchorage, Alaska, the decision was literally made on a “why not?” philosophy. Why would we go? Why not! I have to tell you it was one of the most incredible experiences that has shaped my entire life from that point forward. Going back to revisit was amazing.

Humans get involved in analysis paralysis, stuck in our thoughts and in our heads. We think too much and it stunts our movement forward. I want to challenge you when the next opportunity presents itself, see if you can answer it with a “YES!” instead of thinking too much (of course as long as it is safe and reasonable). Take the opportunities that help us live fully. We only get once chance to live this life. Let me know how it goes!