Feel your feelings or
your body will feel them for you.
 

Dem bones, dem bones
By Jan Henrickson

"I've gone to look for myself. If I should return before I come back, please keep me here…" declares a sign on the door to the adjustment room of at-ease Chiropractic Wellness Center.

"That's how a lot of people feel after an adjustment," said Dr. Joan Norton with a grin. She and Dr. Nicholas Tivoli are partners in healing at at-ease, which utilizes Classic Network Chiropractic protocol.

Forget the image many people associate with the word 'chiropractic.' Network Chiropractic is completely nonmedical. There are no x-rays, no white coats, no appointments, and no private offices. Not even any patients.

"A patient comes in and drops his body off for you to fix," said Norton. "The people that come here are our partners in health. They are practice members. We assist in their healing, but they must take ultimate responsibility for their own process. By taking responsibility for their own healing, they find self-empowerment.

Developed by chiropractor Donald Epstein, Network Chiropractic draws from a myriad of chiropractic techniques. It is not about curing or diagnosing. Its intention is to honor the body-mind's inherent wisdom and clear it of any interference that may be blocking the life force's natural flow.

One step into the at-ease adjustment room and you're embraced by a mural of deep purple. Aquarian colors, underwater sunlight and a wealth corner - nine red fish swimming around a pot of gold.

Then there are the sixteen tables lined up in rows. A woman subtly undulates on one like a mermaid. Her body rises fluidly into yoga postures. Next to her, a man lies face down on the table, his arms and feet fluttering in quick, successive movements.

Dr. Tivoli and Dr. Norton don't hover over any one practice member. They assist when needed, making light contacts to locate and adjust the vertebral subluxation complex. A subluxation is a misalignment of the spinal bones and/or tension of the associated nervous system. The nervous system controls all other systems in the body.

According to Dr. Norton, the meningeal system, which is the thin sheath around the spinal cord, may hold imprints caused by physical, emotional or chemical stress that the body was unable to adapt to. So as we release the tension in the meningeal system, old patterns and blocked energies stored in the physical body are released.

Some people release their old patterns, memories, traumas, and joys by crying, laughing, kicking, swimming movements, while others quietly release their patterns with the breath. Sometimes people speak in languages they don't consciously know. All expressions are honored in this safe and flexible environment.

Drs. Tivoli and Norton encourage practice members not to judge themselves for whatever comes through them.

"Sometimes when people first start getting adjusted they get caught up in analyzing everything and you have to allow that. But if you step in dog doo, you're not going to want to analyze whether it's German Shepherd or Chihuahua. You just want to get the doo off and you walk on," said Tivoli.

"It's beneficial to have the open adjusting room with several people being adjusted at the same time", said Tivoli. "Each persons healing affects every other practice member in the room."

"It's like an instrument," Norton said. "If you bring a tuning fork near a guitar or piano string that is vibrating and the tuning fork is set at the same frequency, it will automatically start vibrating with the piano string. If one person on the table has something going on, other people on other tables will resonate with it. Sometimes I'll hold a sacral contact on one person, and you'll see a line of butts rising further down the room. And they're all face down, eyes closed. Or someone will go into the fetal position and several other members in the room will go into the same position at the same time. The idea of separation is such an illusion. This work will show it."

In much the same way, Tivoli and Norton fine-tune each other, enhancing their mutual growth.

Norton was a management consultant when she first discovered Network Chiropractic via Dr. Jean Squire in Indianapolis.

"I saw a practice very honoring to the individual. It definitely created some life changes in me. At 45 years old I decided to go back to school and live my dreams. All from being adjusted. You start having all these insights, reliving childhood dreams and releasing them or living them out."

Over a period of two years, she made the 10-hour drive to Destiny Chiropractic with Dr. Squire. "I would stay with them for a week at a time, get adjusted and then go for long walks and bawl my eyes out because I knew that this work was something that I had to do. I fought this change tooth and nail. I did not want to begin again after all these years and yet, I finally surrendered. Getting adjusted was, and is, such an empowering thing. It's not that you get adjusted and wallow in whatever comes up. With the adjustments, the nervous system is cleared from interference and you get in touch with your Higher Self and the power just comes through. Once the power comes through, you know what you have to do, and you have the strength and courage to move ahead.

Norton and Tivoli met through Network Chiropractic. A Taoist experienced in bodywork; Tivoli scared himself when he first began Network adjustments.

"I had lots of rage and anger that I wasn't even aware of. I did a lot of screaming and yelling at first on the tables."

"And at the time, he was convinced he didn't have an ounce of anger in him" said Norton, laughing.

"That was the old me," said Tivoli, lifting a pant leg to reveal an ankle tattooed with pointy barbs. "It's good to remind ourselves how far we've come."

Thanks to these adjustments, a mother and her daughter are drug-free - the mother off Prozac and her daughter off Ritalin. A man, who had forsaken his art many years ago, has opened up a studio. And a two-year-old boy who used to tear the at-ease Center apart while his parents got adjusted, now gets adjusted himself.

"He was extremely aggressive. Now he's extremely active," said Tivoli.

"He's happier and calmer," Norton said. "He sleeps better and now his parents can't drive down this street with him in the car unless they stop here."

And why wouldn't they?