How I Became a Chiropractic Advocate

I was born a poor sharecropper's son. Nope.
It was a dark and stormy night. Not really.
It all started at a 1000-watt daytime radio station in Olympia, Washington.
That's actually correct. I had won some awards in my high school architecture class and I was set to become an architect. The next Frank Lloyd Wright. I began my liberal arts education at the nearby brand new Evergreen State College where a communications course landed me an internship at KITN Radio. After a semester or two, I found radio much more interesting than college, so I dropped out to pursue a career in radio.
That led to stints working in advertising agencies in Denver, Colorado Springs, Seattle and San Francisco. A gig at an audio production studio was a precursor to the role of a producer for a film production company. We made documentaries, TV commercials, sales films and training videos. That's how I discovered chiropractic. On January 19, 1981.
Like most of the population (even today), I didn't know anything about chiropractic. I'd heard stories. I had a negative association with chiropractic, but I couldn't tell you why. There was something illegitimate; non-mainstream about it. This is why all of us at the film company pretty much looked past the new tenants who moved in next door in Suite 201 when we found out they were chiropractors.
Turns out Dr. Joseph Flesia and Dr. Guy Riekeman were getting ready to create the first chiropractic patient education video. Home VCRs had recently become available and the idea of creating a consistent orientation message that could be shown to new patients was a breakthrough concept. Would our film production company like to help create such a video?
Maybe.
Frankly, wary of chiropractors and what we might be getting ourselves into, it was suggested that someone from our company attend one of their three-day seminars to find out what this chiropractic thing was all about.
I got the short straw.
What I heard at that seminar resonated deeply with me. The supremacy of the nervous system "connected the dots" with the experience I'd had in my own body. The notion that spine could interfere with the proper control and regulation of the entire body made total sense. I got it.
I began chiropractic care more as a research project on February 13, 1981. If I was to help communicate with new patients and set appropriate expectations, I needed to experience it for myself! I didn't have any symptoms. I just wanted to know what a new patient's experience would involve and what an adjustment felt like.
Little did I know that would start an incredible journey, that 25 years later, has involved receiving care from nine different chiropractors, paying almost $36,000 cash for it, conducting over 50 in-office consultations and patient focus groups, starting three chiropractic communication resource companies, creating over 70 wall charts and more than 100 different brochures, producing14 different patient education videos, writing nine books detailing the doctor/patient relationship (from a patient's point of view) and traveling over a million miles lecturing for chiropractic groups around the world.
So, I didn't become an architect. Turns out, I became something of a translator, helping to bridge the gap between chiropractors and patients. Why did I become a "chiropractic advocate?"
Probably for the same reason you became a chiropractor. I think those who choose health care as a career path are attracted to it because they're searching for answers to their own health challenges. Whether they're conscious of it or not, understanding the body, helping others, alleviating suffering and offering hope is a way to assuage some deep, compelling drive to find healing for ourselves.
At least that's what I've come to believe.
So, for me, the real journey hasn't been about learning more and more about chiropractic, but learning more and more about myself, my purpose and how I can advance the Truth. Chiropractic, and the people I've met during the last 25 years, have helped me down the path of living more consciously.
From Drs. Flesia and Riekeman I learned a lot. They patiently answered my questions and mentored me into an understanding of the folly of symptom-treating, they helped defang the fear of germs, made me aware of the medicalization of the birth process and inspired me to become a public speaker.
From the chiropractors who invited me to their offices and the patient focus groups I led on their behalf, I learned that there is a huge disconnect between what chiropractors say and what patients actually believe. It was like seeing sausage being made! I gained a greater appreciation and respect for the difficulty of actually delivering chiropractic to patient after patient weaned on a medical model of health.
I learned a lot from Greg Stanley. While he reinforced my beliefs in the importance of being debt-free (something I'm far from yet achieving!) he demonstrated that it was possible to be a non-DC and still contribute to the success of practitioners and the profession. He showed me it was possible, in fact, maybe advantageous, to be influential without a D.C. after my name.
Dr. Claudia Anrig taught me the importance of pediatric chiropractic. But even more, she and her chiropractic family demonstrated character, integrity and the importance of serving. When I think of the all the people who have made me feel welcomed and appreciated in this profession, the Anrig family is among the first that comes to mind.
I learned that there is a family feud within chiropractic. One side of the family sees chiropractic as a conservative treatment for neuro-musculoskeletal complaints. The other sees chiropractic as influencing the entire body by restoring nervous system integrity. Seems to me both are correct, however the "Tastes-great!-Less-filling!" debate continues to blunt the impact of the profession at the expense of patients deceived by the medical-industrial complex.
From Dr. Donny Epstein I learned the importance of breath, touch, tone and inspiration. He taught me the distinction between what I do and what my purpose is. He revealed how we each attach stories to events to give them meaning and how these made-up stories distort reality. He taught me that symptoms contain a lesson, and that rushing in too quickly to "fix" the patient can preclude the patient from learning the lesson.
Just as the Bible appears to be a collection of gibberish to the nonbeliever, I learned that the Green Books published by B.J. Palmer produce a similar response among those who only see the physicality of our existence. I learned about the educated mind and the attempts to drum out the vitalistic roots of chiropractic. I learned that those who thrive in chiropractic adapt themselves to the principles of chiropractic, and that those who are struggling have attempted to fashion chiropractic in their own image.
From Dr. Patrick Gentempo I learned the importance of making chiropractic about the nervous system, not bones, posture, alignment or technique. From him I learned that we live our lives through our nervous systems and that the quality of our lives is directly related to its integrity. And in the process, I acquired a much more likely explanation of subluxation and that it's a way our body makes the best of a difficult situation.
I learned that the biggest lie in chiropractic is, "If patients knew what you knew, they would do what you do." I know that it's a lie because there's a disconnect between knowing and doing. After all, most people "know" they should floss their teeth once a day, but only about 25% of us actually do. That's why I came to believe that patients do what they do, because they believe what they believe. Acting in unhealthy ways is merely an attempt to remain congruent with a consciously- or unconsciously-held belief. Thus, most attempts at "managing" patients are merely treating the symptoms of a belief!
From Dr. Scott Walker I learned that emotionally-caused subluxations are epidemic, yet virtually ignored by most chiropractors. I learned that we are destined to behave in unexplainable ways that sabotage our success if we go around, evade, accommodate rather than go through, confront, face and neutralize. That our emotional reality can be quite different from our physical reality. By acquiring a rudimentary working knowledge of his technique, I was able to get a glimpse of the doctor/patient relationship from the doctor's point of view. How painful it must be to know that you could help someone, yet they shun your overtures or sabotage their success.
From Dr. Lou Jenik I learned that when it comes to healing, it's ultimately a spiritual event. I learned that some of the core beliefs that directed me in the first 50 years of my life, will not hold me in bondage during the second. Gone, are such all time favorites as, "I'm alone," "I'm separate," "If I rest I'll die," "Self-effort will save me," and who can forget the ever popular, "I am what I do."
After almost 25 years I feel like I'm just getting started. I have so much more to learn and there are so many people needlessly suffering because they don't know there are solutions beyond drugs or surgery or "learning to live with it." That's why I'm so fascinated by the Socratic Method and how the Internet has the potential getting the chiropractic message to the masses, bypassing the mainstream media, drunk on drug money. There is so much to be done!
It's an honor to be serving beside you.
About the Author
William Esteb is the creative director of Patient Media, Inc., a patient communication resource company for chiropractors. Review his materials, subscribe to Monday Morning Motivation and request a free 64-page New Patient catalog by visiting www.patientmedia.com or calling (800) 486-2337.