Recently I came across a novel way of thinking about the harmony of life and a way to reconnect. The overall system was a means to reconnect to our consciousness. The more I read the more I realized it was similar to our chiropractic science, philosophy, and art.

George Gurdjieff, a Russian from the 20th century, had a unique philosophy on life and consciousness. Gurdjieff discussed how the normal human being becomes disconnected from life and true consciousness by the habitual aspects of daily living. Because we are all creatures of habit, we go through life as though in deep sleep, hardly noticing the important happenings surrounding us. One of the mainstays that were mentioned about Gurdjieff was that he had a philosophy and process to get away from this sleepwalking. His theory was that through work there was a way to enable to body to function in harmony and allow the mind to regain full consciousness. Gurdjieff presented an idea of three centres of the mind that function independently of one another and yet, when functioning together equally, create harmony in the brain and body. These three states are emotional, intellectual, and physical. Most people do not utilize each in equal portions daily. Here is where chiropractic comes into play.

The chiropractic profession has three separate facets that must be equally represented in order for the chiropractor to function to his highest potential. Science, the intellectual aspect, is vitally important in the way we study the profession and the effect that we have on the nervous system after an adjustment. Art, the physical portion is represented by the adjustment. There are portions of the adjustment that are highly emotional, highly intellectual, but regardless of your technique or view on chiropractic, a thrust or energy of some kind must be transmitted from the doctor to the patient, which is an entirely physical concept. Philosophy is the third leg and is the emotional aspect of the profession. Emotions range from love and sympathy to hate, negativity, and all through the spectrum. When we look at the components of the chiropractic triune, philosophy is the emotional aspect because it gives us our why. Why we do what we do, why we care about our patients, why we believe how we believe. The how and what are both described by the art and science, physical and intellectual respectively. The why are our emotions, the reason behind our actions and the driving force behind everything we believe.

The next aspect to this system of consciousness states that only when all three of these centres of the mind are working equally will we be fully conscious. In order for this to happen, we must be so ingrained in our work that our whole view of self is left behind.

Gurdjieff discusses the ability of negativity to impact our view on work and limit our ability to fully connect the three aspects of the mind. Negativity is an inherently selfish concept because we are negative about personal situations. We feel that our time is better served or that we are not using our time properly. Negativity is one of the greatest defining factors in our profession as well. When we bog ourselves down in the day-to-day effort of treating symptoms, dealing in pain or forgetting the importance of the adjustment we increase the negativity and decrease the functioning of the emotional and physical centres of the mind. A pain and symptom-based approach loses the importance of the profession and inherently leaves us with a negative view that lacks a universal importance and approach.

The key to transcending consciousness is the ability to have all three of these centres working equally and in harmony. When we let one of the centres of our mind work more than the other we allow our consciousness to become lopsided and listless. As the author Colin Wilson wrote “ listlessness, a tendency to waste time and consciousness, like a person staring out of the window at the rain and yawning, wondering what to do next.” Our key to transcending the habitual, both in practice and life, is to begin to enjoy the work we put in. Wilson calls this in effect applied Taoism. By putting all of our effort into work, every bit of energy, without thinking of the negatives, then we can connect our triune and function at optimal potential. This philosophy on work does not apply only to chiropractic, placing all your will into work can be seen in other professions and often the most success is found when this principle is applied. Wilson believes we should work like a laborer, not a machine. Put all your will into the work you do.

Work is fun I love to work.

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