Its past due to post this latest blog as I have been pressing the flesh and telling DC’s how to awaken their passion in a variety of locales. In the earliest days of coaching and lecturing Patrick G and I would log between 30-40 weekends away each year. That’s a lot of airport reading to work through.
The post today will be of a practical vein as most of the docs that I have worked with recently need an update on the discussion of the GAP. As you know, my coaching program is styled after that principle hence the name, GAP Coaching. Remember that GAP is a derivative of Selye’s original concepts of General Adaptive Syndrome. At Total Solutions, we reorganize the GAS to become the GAP which now stands for General Adaptive Potential.
In essence, we all operate within boundaries. Thankfully they are not rigid like a set of train tracks but rather flexible and responsive to life’s nuances. If we look at the opportunities of living big and living on purpose then we would be well served to widen the GAP as often and as much as possible. As A Dr. Beatrice Berry puts it,” When you walk with purpose you collide with destiny.”
The lower boundary of the GAP represents entropy. It’s where life energy has depleted and the rigors of daily living have taken such a toll that the GAP is narrow and the dis-ease is the norm. The lower boundary is where failed decisions come to rest. The net effect of persistent dis-stress pushes the patient or the person closer to that lower boundary. The lowest level that can be reached is when life energy, the elan vital, can no longer be expressed and death ensues.
The upper limit is actually limitless. It represents the opportunity of expressing human potential at its nadir. This boundary is self and evolutionarily imposed. We mere mortals live with glass ceilings where we can envision what lies beyond but feel the constraints of self imposition. Who knows when the next barrier to human performance and creativity will be shattered?
At each station in life we develop a state of ease that “fixes” these boundaries. These set points become our relevant and dominant perspective. We activate our neurology to allocate a state of ease where physical, mental and biochemical stressors are viewed as eustress (beneficial to growth and maintenance). What is one man’s poison is another’s pleasure. We operationalize our tasks to use enough stress to get pleasure and enjoyment in life which may or may not be enough to “raise the bar”. Eventually, we accept these limits until creativity and purpose push us to expand. So long as the added stresses are deemed to be advantageous to our future well being, the body-mind deems these to be eustress, thereby expanding the limits. When unintentional stress is applied, a downward force is activated and the GAP begins to close. This can be from any one or all three dimensions of stress, simultaneously, instantaneously or insidiously. Regardless, the perspective is altered and what used to be tolerable now changes to aggravating as the upper limit slumps.
Stress is cumulative by nature and design and so if unmanaged or emotionally charged, a snowball effect begins. But something worse is at play. This snowballing isn’t linear. As stress affects the processing in the neural core and perceptions are altered, the original tranche of stress becomes another stress to deal with. This snowball is rolling downhill, gathering speed and overcoming the inertia that has taken years to develop. This is now an exponential problem. That is verging on “out of control”.
Somewhere along this chain of events, the body-mind recognizes this altered state and begins to produce defensive strategies. This guarded response is to protect and alert the stress owner that something big is amiss. Sadly the owners are rarely tuned in to their bodily state. In effect they are disembodied. This shift from stress/ eustress to distress creates a measurable response that we term the subluxation. It is identifiable through its spinal component, the vertebral subluxation in ways that chiropractors are trained to analyze. For this reason, we can apply the results of the scanning technology to the concept of GAP. WE can use the combined score of an NSFi to represent the width of the GAP that a person is operating through at the time of exam. We can identify where and how deep the stresses( distresses) are being stored and to what extent they are altering the health of the patient by reviewing the thermal scans. Algometry allows us to measure the sensitivity of the inflamed, upper tissues while inclinometry detects the global guarding associated with subluxation. Dysponesis is a state of total energy inefficiecy and can be identified through sEMG readings to understand the failing state of energy management in dis-ease. Finally the HRV is a point of reference for the doc and the patient to see how the narrowing GAP is affecting the patient’s ability to adapt and “dance on the head of a pin.”
As you can see, the goal of the chiropractor is to “widen the GAP”. Innate allows us to have a GAP and Innate is programmed to widen the GAP so that we humans can accomplish our purpose and destiny. If distress can narrow the GAP then adjustments can jack it open. Keeping it open and pushing the boundaries is a combined effort of purpose, chiropractic and hygienic decisions. I registered the website, www.widenthegap.com for some future project that could inspire, teach and train the world how simple it can be to take charge of one’s health, perspective and future. Send me your thoughts on how this may look and we can collaborate on widening the gap in our communities.
So, all of the airports and recycled airplane air have narrowed my GAP. Writing to all of you has begun the process of easing the downward push on my system. The healing is in play. Use the GAP wisely and train your people how good it is for everyone to get “gapping”.
DocFletch blogs are shared around the world. Pass on the link and let the scanning and chiropractic communities know that this is the destination to learn and grow as a chiropractic warrior. I invite all of you to drop me a line in the comments section or do as many do and write an email to docfletch@docfletch.com. Let’s widen the GAP one patient and one family at a time.
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