Chiropractic Principle 20 - Innate Intelligence

Hello! Thank you for reading my first blogpost (see http://ashinaflashchiro.blogspot.com/2016/08/ash-in-flash-my-why.html) on my “why”. I hope that you now understand my motivations behind running twice a day every day, as well as why I choose to serve my community through chiropractic care.

In my first blogpost, I mentioned the first chiropractic principle, which states the following major premise:

Principle 1 - “There is a universal intelligence in all matter, continuously giving to it all its properties and actions, thus maintaining it in existence, and giving this intelligence its expression.”

There are a total of 33 chiropractic principles which were published in the 1927 “Chiropractic Textbook” by Ralph Stephenson, D.C. (Doctor of Chiropractic). These principles lay the foundation for why we do what we do in chiropractic. In this blogpost, I focus on Principle 20:

Principle 20 - “A ‘living thing’ has an inborn intelligence within its body, called Innate Intelligence.”

Do we take the time to step back from our seemingly busy schedules to appreciate nature? When I was whale watching with Coach Rameshon just after the 2012 Gold Coast Marathon, I was in awe. Our boat got up close to majestic humpback whales in their natural setting as they completed their annual migration from Antarctica to Australia. Sensing an audience, several of them showed off with acrobatic flips! How do thousands of whales know how to complete that same yet complex 10,000 kilometer (6,214 miles) journey, without any fancy GPS watch?

In awe while whale watching with Coach Rameshon at Gold Coast (Australia) in 2012

In addition to the intelligence within animals, how often do we take for granted the wonders of our living human body? When I was in Kenya twice in 2015 for high altitude run training, I routinely watched the famous Tuesday track workouts at Kamariny Stadium. I was an audience to poetry in motion. The fast Kenyans would make their speed intervals look effortless with their swift turnover, giant stride, and proper form. How do their bodies know exactly how to coordinate all the cells, tissues, organs, and systems of the body when running? Over there I also had the opportunity to meet Wilson Kipsang, who is the former marathon world record holder (2h3m23s). How does Kipsang dial in a 4m43s per mile (for 26.2 miles) pace from start to finish without having to constantly will his muscles to do so?    

Watching poetry in motion while posing with former marathon record holder Wilson Kipsang at Iten (Kenya) in 2015

The answer to both of the above scenarios is “Innate Intelligence”. All living beings, from whales to runners (not just the fast ones!), are blessed with this inborn intelligence. This intelligence is present in each of us from the time of conception until we draw our last breath. You may not swim like a whale or run like Kipsang, but you have to recognize there is a superconscious coordination at play that is functioning 24/7.

You may make the conscious decision to get up from sitting at your desk (hopefully to lace up your running shoes) or to have a meal, but unconsciously you somehow maintain balance while standing and digest that meal without you willing yourself to. Even while sleeping, your heart continues beating and supplying oxygen throughout your body. The list goes on and on. You can thank your Innate Intelligence for helping to maintain your body material in active organization.

Here is the underlying function of your Innate Intelligence: it adapts universal forces and matter for use in the body, so that all parts of the body will have coordinated action for mutual benefit (Principle 23). While universal forces ensure a rock remains a solid matter, a rock cannot self-heal when broken up. Similarly, when you cut a cadaver in an anatomy lab, it cannot self-heal. Contrast this with when you accidentally graze your skin; white blood cells and clotting factors immediately rush to the wound area to prevent infection and repair the damage, forming a scab which eventually falls off. You can put a plaster on the wound but it is ultimately your Innate Intelligence doing the healing. This makes living beings unique because we have this flowing life force called Innate Intelligence, helping us function and adapt, making us much more than the sum of our individual parts. That is the essence of Principle 20.

Chiropractors recognize that there is a unique Innate Intelligence within each of you; we merely work alongside that intelligence when we locate, analyze and correct vertebral subluxations for the optimization of individual potential. Would you like to have your spine checked today?