Dr. Don Macdonald 0:00
We have a necessary ending that needs to happen and where that needs to be with a relationship, whether it needs to be in our office, whether it needs to be like with a staff member, where it needs to be with our old mindsets and belief systems. Sometimes, in order for us to have a new beginning or hit our goals in our life, we actually need to end something that hasn't been working for us, but we are kind of used to it, so it's kind of like the hell you know is better than the hell you don't know. Hello and welcome. I'm Dr Don McDonald, and it's my pleasure to bring you a podcast dedicated to the chiropractors who are not just about treating pain, but about making a profound impact on the nervous systems of their practice members. Let's embark on this journey of enhancing our practices, our communities and the lives of the people we touch one nervous system at a time. Thank you for joining me on the informed chiropractor. Let's get started.
Well, hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the informed chiropractor. I'm Dr Don MacDonald your host, and today I am going to do another solo session. If you guys recall the last time I did a solo session was probably back in January, and we were just at a stage where we were having a challenge with our dog Lux. And it was funny, when I was uploading the YouTube video, I was like, Oh, I'm totally disassociated because I'm like, oh, it looks like we're gonna have to put our dog down. And I was so casual about it, and I wanted to talk a little bit about that experience, because I think we can learn a lot about losing things or having endings that have happened in our life. And as soon as Lux had passed away, like it was way, way worse than I thought, like it was way harder for us than I ever kind of had imagined. We'd kind of had scheduled him initially to be put down during the Christmas holidays, and then he, he kind of came around and perked back up again. And so we delayed it out because we have that they'll actually come to our house because we want to he, he's so crazy around other animals that we would not bring him actually to a vet, because I think when I were the first year we had him. He was choking on a roll out rawhide, and I was basically trying to give him the high maneuver to keep him alive. He almost died, and then jumped in the car and ran and we went to our vet. And even when he was choking, he tried to bark at at a dog when he was like, we're running him in for them to put him under, to clear his airways. So because he's so crazy, we had to book a vet to come to our house to do that. And so we postponed that for till the last Friday of January, and then we were going to go to calgary after that, just to kind of get a break from the house. But then he, he started having a downturn midway through January, and in the nights he wouldn't be he he couldn't settle, because he just wasn't comfortable. And yeah, it was kind of getting worse and worse. And so we actually had to move it up a week, and then that wasn't part of our plans either, because then we had to we put them down on a Friday, and then we worked a Saturday. And so we kind of told everybody at workgate, nobody's talking about putting the dog down so that we can survive the next day. And and so anyway, it was brutal. And so I know, I know many people out there have either lost a loved one or lost an animal. And so I wanted to kind of take a spin on a loss, because it was actually interesting, is that right after Lux had passed away, like basically created a massive void in our life, because, like, at that point of life when a dog is kind of slowly declined over many years, you don't really realize how much energy you put into that dog and how much it takes up of your life. And then when that's gone and there's a void, it's just like it's such a huge emptiness in your life. And so I think it was about even a day or two after I across my Facebook feed, came a book called necessary endings. And I was like, well, that's interesting, because that was probably a necessary ending, but it was not very enjoyable. And so I basically got this book, read it, and it was actually quite insightful, because it was pretty helpful to just talk about how in life, many times we have a necessary ending that needs to happen, and where that needs to be with a relationship, whether it needs to be in our office, whether it needs to be like with a staff member, where it needs to be with our old mindsets and belief systems. Sometimes in order for us to have a new beginning or hit our goals in our life, we actually need to end something that hasn't been working for us, but we are kind of used to it, so it's kind of like, the hell you know is better than the hell you don't know and and so after listening to this book, I was like, You know what? I want to do a podcast episode this, kind of like in tribute to lux. But I couldn't really do it until now, because I probably wouldn't have made it through. So I basically took five of the biggest learnings of this experience with Lux, and I thought I would just share it with you guys, because I think a lot of people, and we work with a lot of chiropractors, actually, it's funny because this book and the thing with Lux actually inspired us to do a new program called Ignite and and we're going to start to offer that a few more times, because we really love the deep work that we're doing. Doing with chiropractors. And so we take a small group of chiropractors and we do a one day mastermind, and part of it is finding out what is their necessary endings. Because the challenge is, often, as chiropractors, we learn new things, or new new tactics, or new stuff for our office or our life, is that we just keep trying to add stuff into our life, and then then we start to get super exhausted and overwhelmed, because there's just too much stuff going on. And so one of the things me and Brandi are really focusing on now is especially at this stage of our life, because, you know, we've been practiced for 27 years. You know, going to be selling the practice in a couple of years. And then we actually don't know what we're going to do, but we're going to do something. We'll either go to England and practice for a while, or maybe try to work at a school, or we'll do something. But at this stage of our life, we don't want to be putting a whole bunch more energy into things like and we also want to make sure that we are actually putting our energy into things that actually give us an amplified return. And the only way that you know that you're putting stuff into life that you get an amplified return is if you actually measure what is your return, do it, re evaluate it, and then adapt to it, right? So that that's one of the things that we we really wanna do. And so many people we work with are doing things that they've just done for a long time, or they used there, they used to do things that really worked and then switched it up because they weren't measuring in so getting lifetime feedback. So if we can kind of go through these five things that I learned from the experience with unfortunately, having put Lux down, maybe this might help you some way in your life too. So the first is, Grief is a sign that something mattered deeply. And so when, when we lost Lux, it just reminded us of how much love and connection we had, and how much of a mark that makes on your life and and as we talk about the polyvagal theory and the importance for us to be strong co regulators for our practice members just realizing how important it is to make sure you have a co regulator. And as we've said before, you know, a co regulator can be a person, but it also can be an animal. And so that's why, I think they say that seniors, who actually get animals, they actually become healthier and live longer, because they actually have a co regulator, because they do not have that isolation. So I think that that understanding when you lose something, but understanding how profoundly important that was for the time that he was around. So just, just to be, like, grateful for those 12 years that we had with him, where, like, in the evenings, like Brian goes to bed a little bit before me, and they would kind of cuddle and hang out on the couch. And just being, just being appreciative of those kind of things. Because at the end of your life, that is, that's what life's about, is about those moments that you get to share in the moment. You know, we always in at least for me, in chiropractic and business, you have tend to see this set like future goals and always planning for the future and what's next and what's next. And super important to just kind of get back to being on the in the present. And I kind of found this one quote from the book. It says endings are not only a part of life, they are required for living and thriving. And so that's the thing is that when you end something, you appreciate it, but then you'd be very conscious of what you're going to start to replace it. Now the second thing is, not all endings are failures. Some are gateways to growth. And so like for us, choosing to put Lux down wasn't a failure, but it was actually an act of love and wisdom and and that's the thing is, we knew he wasn't doing very good near the end, but we had the mixed feelings because, because we were, we were actually booking his date to pass away. I was we were feeling guilt right here, feeling like, geez, like maybe this is the wrong decision, or kind of going back on it, but, but it actually was, it was like for humans to like, it's funny how we'll do this for animals, and we'll, we'll make sure that they don't suffer, but we obviously don't do this for humans, but, but it's but it's interesting. We've had so many people who the best advice that we actually got would be people who said, when they waited to put their dog down. Often they found at the end that they waited a little bit too long, and so we wanted to make sure, again, you don't want to do too early, but you also don't do too late. And so we just realized that that was, it was an act of love, and that's that's something make us feel a lot better when we felt all that guilt right off the bat when we had initially put them down. The third one is the pain of endings, often less than the pain of holding on for too long. Well this, this is kind of a an amplification of what we just said, and just realizing that for us, if we would have let luck Lux go further and further, he would have been suffering more and more. And just realizing at that time that even though it feels like a tough decision at the time
and again, this is this is future pacing. So even in your office or in your life, if there's something that you feel like there needs to be an ending, but it seems like it's too painful to do, what you do is you just you time stamp that out in the future and future pace. And just say, Okay, well, if we leave this, what is that going to be like? Well, lux probably wouldn't have lasted for a year, but even if you would, what would have been like if we let it go for three months or six months, like, what? What would that do? And what would that be an experience for Lux and and that, if you really amplify that and get crystal clear in your mind, then we realize that that's going to be way worse than the pain of of kind of relieving him of his discomfort earlier on. And so I think that is an important distinction, if anything, for example, poor staff, poor relationship, something needs to be said to something to somebody. Sometimes that short term pain feels horrible, but just remember, we really want to dig into what is the long term pain, because we often can get short sighted, especially to avoid short term pain. But often we, if we don't get really clear on that, we don't realize that we're creating massive long term pain, just get, like, a little bit of reprieve from the short term pain. So that's something to pay attention to for that as well. Number four is that we must grieve the old before we fully welcome the new. And again, like said, lux, lux, when he left, we were like, we felt like nothing was going on, like it just felt so empty. But I think experiencing that emptiness, like a lot of the stuff that we've done through polyvagal theory is, is understanding that you know you don't need to fix someone in grief. You don't need to say the right thing. You just need to be present with one another, or present with someone. And so I think us just being present in in the grief, what allowed us to to basically process a lot better. You don't want to be distracted by it or try to be focused on other things. You actually kind of want to just get into it, because it also helps you appreciate him in the moment as well. And the low code is true. Growth comes from honoring the transition zone. So honoring that if you had to let go of a staff, just honor that that feels that feels uncomfortable, honoring if you have to stop procedures, because that's the only way that you're going to grow. And then number five is, endings makes us more present, more grateful, and more human and and one of the quotes from the book is, is, is just being present. And for me, the final days with Lux brought everything into so much focus, like, I'm like, all the last three walks, like it's just crazy, like I just, I was just in the moment remembering saying, I'm going to remember this because, again, these are the last walks that we're doing. For those of you who read my book, the underdog curse, one of the inspirations of that was when my buddy Rob got diagnosed with ALS and and for over those last couple years before he got basically incapacitated, just in a chair, like we did so many of the last things with him. And it was, it was actually, really does make you become more present, into the moment where we, like, we went skiing with him for the last time. We went skating with him for last time. We went golfing with him for the last time. Like all these different things we did, the last things with him, and just realizing that that was the last time just become becomes a lot more present present, and just sharpens us into enjoying this time. A lot of times, people like you say we see set goals for the future, and when I get here, then I'll enjoy it. When I get there, then I'll enjoy it. And again, that that's the whole thing of life is actually enjoying it in the moment. It was funny. We're talking with brandy saying, Well, you know, when we first put our first cat down that I was a step dad with, we were like, We're never having an animal again, because that was so uncomfortable. But after a year of not having an animal, that's when we initially decided to get Lux, because we realized that, you know the short pain that is painful when you have to say goodbye, but it's nowhere close to the benefit or the life that enriches you while they're with you, so that that makes it work totally worthwhile. It's so funny, because I'm I am a little bit adverse. I have a natural aversion towards discomfort, and so I think it's helpful to zoom out so you can kind of reframe stuff like that, so that you can you can make tough decisions, because short term it's hard, but long term, it's actually going to make things a lot easier. And then, of course, the last little things that I wanted to talk about was this, sometimes in practice, we need to stop things like stop adjusting the way we've been doing. Opt in. Like, change our technique. This is what I found during COVID, when everybody came in and they're just different than they were before. Like, some of the things that I was doing before to help practice members wasn't working as well as it was before. And again, we had, I had to stop do that, but we had, we try new things. And then from that came the McDonald's safety corridor protocol, where we're working with the safety corridor. And now we find that that even has a massive amplification of a regulatory effect on a chiropractic adjustment. It doesn't change the adjustment. It just helps to change the lens at which we're adjusting them with which just do. Find nuances, which helped to put safety cues into the nervous system. And again, that wouldn't have come across if I wouldn't, if we wouldn't, had gone through the frustration of seeing all these people that were in massive threat responses coming in from being isolated, told that other humans were dangerous for us. That would never have happened if it wasn't for that. And so that was a very good, necessary ending that helped us go on. It's also language to let go of that doesn't resonate with us. It's funny because we started everything out with the vitality shift, where we're talking about improving function, moving away from treating pain and working into function. And now that we've kind of really dived into the polyvagal theory, now it's a lot easier for us to say neurological safety. So when we have neurological safety in the system, we are in a regulated state. And so again, we've, we've kind of like evolved our language over time. You know, some people have to go really evolve from like treating like treating, giving a treatment plan, switching to care, care plan, you know, treating pain to optimizing function, treating conditions
to optimizing function, to creating ease in the nervous system so the body can adapt and regulate optimally to give you the best chance of healing. So there's different states that you can actually even change in your language when you're talking about chiropractic character or get people to do what you want. So in the book, it was actually quite interesting when you're if you're working with someone, and you're having a challenge with them, and before you have to decide if this needs to be an ending or not, we want to have a conversation with them. And they said, just realize that there's three types of people when you have a conversation with someone, if they're not either doing what they want to do, or not following through with your boundaries that you've set, or not following through with agreements that you've had. And in the book, they talk about there's three types of people, and there's the wise people that you can actually have a conversation with. And often they'll go away and they'll take what you said to heart, and they'll actually make efforts to improve. And those, those are the good conversations that we want to have with people, because we know that they're going to up level when we up level, and that's constructive. Then there are the foolish people. And the foolish people, you can have a conversation with them about improving, and then they say that they'll, they'll improve, and they're going to do it. And then they don't we, we've been watching my 600 pound life. And this is a very interesting show, because these people are huge. They're like, six, 700 pound eating 567, 1000 calories a day. And they go into the doctor now, and doctor now, if they, if they lose enough weight, then he'll be, he'll actually do bariatric surgery right to make their stomach smaller. And it's just interesting, because, like, a huge portion of them say, I'm going to do it, and then they never do it, and then they lie about them, about what they're doing, and but then he has the measurements. So like, the scale doesn't, doesn't, doesn't lie. So in order to maintain, like, a 600 pound frame, you need to eat 5000 calories a day, or else you can't maintain that weight because it's so big. And so when people have gone like three or four months and they are they're the exact same weight, or they lost like five pounds, and they said, I tried everything, I don't know why the the diet's not working, and he knows that they're not. So these are the foolish people. So in this case, you know they'd be paying for or being on the show or whatever. So he does give them a few choices, but then has to give them ultimatums. So the interesting thing about the book is, if you have someone that you've said multiple times to, they say they're going to do it, but then they're not going to do it, then stop talking to them to get things to change, you have to switch from giving advice or having conversations about how they can improve to ultimatums. Now for the foolish people, they actually just need to have an ultimatum. And now we have to say, I need you to do this by this time, or this are the consequences. So now, instead of inspiring them to change with new ideas, you are giving them the consequence of not doing the follow through. So if you understand the difference between those that really helps through those conversations, especially if it's a staff member or practice member or or anybody who's not following through, and then they they say, you also got to be careful of the dangerous people. So the dangerous people, and like, hopefully there's not that many people in your life, but sometimes they are actually trying to take you down, like they actually want to sabotage you. And so they'll say whatever you want to hear, but they are actually going to take you down. And so you also have to be careful about that, like either backstabbing you, or they're going to try to get themselves like they're trying to use you as a jumping block to get somewhere else. And they'll do whatever you they whatever they can, to make you think like they're trying to help you, but they're actually trying to help themselves. And so I found that a very useful thing to talk to think about in my head. If we're having a conversation with someone, we want to quickly determine if they're one of these three. If they are the wise, we can, we can have that good conversation with them. If they're the foolish, we're going to now have consequential talking. And then if they're the. The dangerous people, then we're going to just try to end that relationship as soon as we can. My last little quote here is necessary endings is about discernment, what to fight for and what to lovingly release. So I hope that's a little bit helpful for you. That was super helpful for me when we had to make that tough decision about Lux. But we have tough decisions all the time, whether it's your kids, whether it's your like said, your spouse, whether it's yourself, and also talk about yourself. We sometimes we have to make sure we end some of the bad habits that we have for ourselves as well. So if you found that helpful, again, we're doing some ignite sessions. We're also doing our 90 day program where we do it 90 days, where we work intensively with only a couple people. We're opening it the second week in April for our next set of 90 days. I'll leave a link in the show notes if you're interested in that, because we only open that twice, twice a year. But I'll just give quick highlights. We have our level two McDonald's safety order Oracle, we still have spots left in for Denver, for May 3. And again, we're going to add some stuff in this, this that we didn't have for other people have done level two, because I just did a lot more work on the the second brain, so the enteric nervous system. So the enteric nervous system is basically a discover that happened long time ago, that they've just rediscovered where we have actually a brain in our stomach, so the nerves don't need to talk to our current brain in the enteric nervous system. They can actually make decisions on themselves on their own. However, it just even amplifies the importance of having tone through the viscera in a safe state. So when we talk about the McDonald safety corridor and the actual safety corridor, we're tracking that vagus nerve as it comes out of the oxalate because, as we know, it's not a spinal nerve, it's a cranial nerve, and as it goes through that whole thoracic cage and all through the visceral cage. But there's lots of other stuff in there too. We have the fascial system, and then we have the enteric nervous system, again, when it produces serotonin, which, again, that's why they always talk about it's the feel the serotonin is that long term feel good drug, not that short term dopamine hit from quick decisions that are short term benefits. But serotonin is more that the feeling of meaning and and that's the neurotransmitter that's one of the main neurotransmitters for the enteric nervous system, which is all in the gut. And then we also have that lymphatic drainage system through the through the gut as well. So just a huge amount of benefit of making sure we take that tension out of that lower viscera, and that's what we're going to be covering on the on the level two. We're only doing two more seminars of that this year, so it's going to be in Denver on May 4, and then those in there in Australia on the 13th of June, the Friday, we're going to do the level two in Australia as well. And then on the Saturday in Australia, we're doing the neuro engaged chiropractic team. And so again, we're just going to dive right into how we can optimize our first second visit, optimize understand the benefits chiropractic care and how to communicate, communicate that to our people. We just basically the goals at the end of that day, everybody's inspired to just crank it up at the on Monday when you get back to the office. And so that's open for staff as well. We're coming to Amsterdam, so September 6, we are that's on the Saturday, we are doing the neuro engaged chiropractor as well for the team event in on Saturday in Amsterdam. But the day before, on the Friday, we are going to do an Ignite. So that's, again, what I just talked about, where we're going to dive through on with it a small number of people, but just dig in there and find out. What are those blocks that are holding you back? Like just we're all about the efficiency less what's the least amount of effort we can do to create the most amount of change in our life, in our practice? But in order to do that, we got to dig down to find out where those blocks are. And that's what we're going to do on the Friday, I think that's the fifth of September, in Amsterdam. And then we're going to come back to Montreal. We've done level one, level two, level three, of the McDonald's safety corridor in Montreal, and we have a really cool group there. So we're going to come back on October 18, and we're going to do the Ignite. And so again, let me know. Let us know. If you're interested in these. We'll get the registration up for these soon. But that's if you're in Montreal or come want to come to Montreal October 18, that's going to be the Ignite. And then December 6, we are coming back to Toronto. So every year we did this last year, so we have our the informed chiropractor super conference. And again, this is a staff event. We don't We only, I think, limit to 40 people, or something like that, 40 attendees. And so we have staff and Docs. This is going to fill right up. And again, it's just all the new things that we've been learning throughout the year. We're going to amplify that. It's all again chiropractic through a polyvagal lens, whether it's the adjusting, whether it's communication, whether it's our self care, whether it's new science, it's all going to we're going to talk about it here. We're also going to talk a little bit about philosophy we have. Dr Pete ramblinger, who's an amazing Chiropractor. From Ontario, who's going to come and join us as our guest speaker for the informed chiropractor, and we will have this registration page up by the time this podcast is out. So if you want to join us anywhere, make sure you visit our website at theinformedchiropractor.com Like I said, I hope you enjoyed those the five lessons of losing Lux, because I wouldn't have been able to do this before. We needed enough time for me to be able to kind of process and do that so but I did want to do one podcast episode dedicated to lux, and so I hope you guys are all doing well. I look forward to seeing you, and till next time, have a great day.
And that brings us to the end of another episode of the informed chiropractor. I want to thank you for joining us today and being an important part of this community dedicated to advancing chiropractic care through the insights of neurology and the polyvagal theory. As we close today's episode, remember that each one of us has the power to make a significant impact on the health and well being of our practice members. It's through our continuous learning, application and sharing of knowledge that we can truly elevate the practice of chiropractic and enhance the lives of those that we serve before we part ways. I encourage you to connect with us online, visit our website and follow us on social media to stay updated. Our website is www dot the informed chiropractor.com, and if you found value in today's episode, please share it with a colleague or a friend who might benefit as well. Your support helps us reach and inspire more chiropractors to make a greater impact on their communities. It's been a pleasure to be with you today on the informed chiropractor and until next time Dr Don out you.
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