August 2005

'Real Women' move on

by Dr. Madeline Behrendt

Oh, I've had a day.

Pull up a chair. This column's gonna be therapy for all of us, a collective purging of the toxins life blows our way. I feel better already.

There's no joy like working with people who break their agreements. And we all run into this type, no matter careful, how clear, how clean we are, no matter how much we consider all the possibilities. People break their agreements, it happens. It stinks.

And we live in all different realities. Choices made by people who are severely subluxated can be very trying to people who are much less subluxated.

So, people break their agreements. Sometimes the blows are bearable, perhaps a "hiccup" from someone's rare bad day. Other times, it's a lifestyle approach. The breaks stem from more of a complete disconnect between what the person says and does. In these circumstances, setting boundaries has no meaning, it's just a doomed exercise.

The most polar examples of this "breaker" frequently show up in films or books or TV series, as they're quite colorful characters. They can be poor and unfulfilled and actions are driven from their reptilian brain. Then, it's all about survival, and your agreement is in their way. At the other extreme are people driven purely by narcissistic ambitions. They're often successful in some way, which can create an unrealistic expectation as to their skill set with other people. Their radar doesn't include concerns about an agreement, you or anything else for that matter. And I'm sure there are all different varieties in between, but there aren't always flashing lights to announce trouble.

All of these characters are much more fun to watch on television or film; we may root for them or root for them to get their due. But how many of us have run into these breakers in life? They can make life pretty miserable if you're connected to them and have to be there for any length of time.

Now, I know some of you out there may be above all of this, but I would guess for the rest of us, that there are still times when someone breaks an agreement and it burns. Actually that's a tipping point, where the real problems can begin. Because while it's very important to consider if there's anything to learn or correct so that the situation doesn't repeat, repeat, repeat, it's just as important to not beat one's self up and make the situation even worse. This is especially crucial for control freaks who find bad situations so tempting to stay in so they can "fix" them.

You see, there's a remedy women have kept secret, but I'll share it with you: "Real Women" move on. Carnage isn't necessary, but moving on is.

Yes, Real Women move on, preferably ASAP. There are just too many people out there to spend one's time, energy, and good will on. And it's really hard to attract higher quality experiences if one is miserable all the time, isn't that the advice we often give to other people?

What I've described up to now generally applies to all areas of life, the interactions occurring in personal and business and professional mingling. And while this column was not instigated by an experience in Practice, broken agreements are something chiropractors face over the course of their career. It can be extreme, as when people feel "hostage" to some other person, event or thing. One example I've considered in previous columns is battered women. As a result, they break agreements with themselves and broken appointments may be part of the collateral damage. While they don't really feel comfortable anymore, their road to wellness may be two steps forward, one step back as they wrestle with deeply ingrained unhealthy choices that have become reflexes. Other instances of broken agreement can be less extreme, but still affect the energy of the practice.

Chiropractors are wise to distinguish where healthy Practice boundaries are in terms of the agreements associated with care, the most obvious being schedule and fees. But there are also other agreements that are important, including how you communicate with each other, other expectations involved, and the way things may change as a person moves from being subluxated to being well.

It's also important for practitioners to know what they can agree to and how to respond when a practice member breaks an agreement. The "Real Women move on" approach is just one option.

And of course it's elemental that chiropractors keep the agreements they make, clean and simple.

Finally, a reminder that this is "Back to School Month." You're welcome to visit The Chiropractic Journal's back issues online index for any of my August columns from previous years for support with Back to School topics.

(Dr. Madeline Behrendt is chair of the WCA Council on Women's Health and associate editor of the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research [JVSR]. An author and speaker, she is committed to connecting women to chiropractic and chiropractors to women, and may be contacted at mbdcawe@aol.com)