TNR Happenings, October 4, 2021

I received a call from a former long-term TNR member. This Chiropractor is a tower of power. She is beautiful in appearance, a great wife, a great mother, and one hell of a Chiropractor. She has become lost and depressed about being a Chiropractor, her real principles, and the purpose and meaning of her life. Every day she has pressure put on her by her husband, parents, and siblings to roll up her sleeve and get with the program. Her husband was about to be fired for not complying with the mandate and her kids are doing Zoom school in lieu of complying with school mandates of chemical branding. Then she was blindsided when she found out her husband succumbed to the pressure and was vaccinated without telling her, and he is now insisting that the kids be vaccinated too. He says he is their parent and he can make decisions for them as well.  Remember, it doesn’t matter that the husband has a zero concept of health.

For TNR readers, the solution seems so simple: rejoin TNR and get your life batteries charged, right? In practical terms, as we all know better, it’s not so simple. Her life, practice, marriage, and kids lie in the balance. She called to hear my reassuring voice and to once again dip in the refreshing but dangerous waters of TNR, where compromise, truces, makeup sex, allowing lies to fester, and convenience are seen for what they really are: temporary substitutes or imitations that will catch up with you sooner, rather than later. No matter what you know to be true, it still takes thermal levels of courage to stand in the face of the lie and the liar. Always has and always will. She is facing all kinds of resistance from her husband, his parents, her parents, and friends. She feels all alone with nobody in her corner. She feels like she is just hanging on. She likened it to the same feeling she had before she joined TNR: that all-alone feeling with no way out. Her husband actually suggested that perhaps she should find a new career. Ideas leave not their source. Her husband’s thinking is powered by a low resonation, fear, arrogance, and competition (she out earns him by a country mile), and it limits and stains everything it touches.

I asked her how things were pre-Covid and she thought things were okay; not great, but okay. Busyness was the order of the day with kids, activities, responsibilities, other people’s expectations, and the practice. They had drifted apart but were joined by the immediate order of the day: KIDS. I explained to her that Covid did not invent the difficulties she’s facing. Covid exposed those difficulties and forced her to see what was really going on. She was not aware enough to see it previously. Her life was turning beige and was spiraling out of control. She had turned into a mosaic of dutifulness and tiredness, and she had lost her sense of adventure, mystery, and fun. Difficult circumstances have a way of shedding light or illuminating what was already there. 

She asked me what to do and I told her the same thing I tell everyone. I can’t tell you what to do like so many others do in our world. Today we see a well-intentioned, but completely ignorant, government use the same force on us that we have seen before (ideas leave not their source): slavery, treatment of Native Americans, war, pollution for profit, war, 6 people being held accountable for rape out of 1,000, etc. I told her, life is meant to be lived, not avoided. You get to live only one life and your decisions have seen and unseen consequences. Get rid of your concept of sacrifice and think of choice instead. When you were in TNR, you discovered and reclaimed your feminine voice and your choice. You healed from illness and you became a protector of the people you love. You are at a fork in the road and must make a choice before this force will claim the very things you love. You have allowed yourself to become dis-spirited like so many others. Within you is the ability and strength to face life as well as the fear to run away from it. It is a choice, not a default. 

I asked her to imagine herself as a painter. Each of her paintings was a masterpiece and would represent a lasting legacy, like echoes of sound or ripples from a stone thrown in a pond. They represent and record your level of consciousness at the time the painting was created, like a vinyl record of the past did. With each miracle you witness and attend to in life, you are forever attached to that person, place, or event. It will long outlast you, regardless of how long you live. Each thing you participate in, whether it be marriage, practice members, kids, or friends, is imbued with your resonation, fingerprint, and intent. They will either represent who you are and what you stand for or they will deteriorate into the mindless of getting chores and projects done. This Chiropractor was intrigued by this concept which she had never heard before. She admitted wanting to get things over with instead of being in the moment and experiencing life. She knew these things would be replaced with more things to do. She would tell herself, ‘Just a few more years until the kids are off to college. Just 20 years to go before retirement, financial security, etc.” She was looking forward to the future because she was not happy in the present. As if the future of her present relationships would somehow magically improve without entering into those difficult dialogues and accepting input for necessary change. She had lost the identity she had earned while in TNR. She knows what to do to get it back, but is it too late for her?

Each of us, male or female, can see parts of us in the above story. It seems to happen suddenly, like a heart attack, but it is usually the accumulation of accepting compromises (like concentric circles), not serving in the highest capacity, and generally not showing up. It’s just too darn hard having such a high code of honor, besides I will get to it tomorrow. One of my favorite sayings was on a bumper sticker in Montana that read: Eight seconds in the ring is worth a lifetime in the stands. They obviously are speaking of bull riding with the excitement and risk and being in the moment.  No matter what the distractions are in the world around us or at home, we had better be able to attend to the business at hand if we want to truly live. TNR is all about living without regrets and apologies, and understanding that most won’t do the work involved to become a director, master, or painter that only creates masterpieces, not junk.

DCME confidential