Thursday, January 25, 2018

Little Changes, Big Changes

A couple of years ago, I started seeing an osteopath to help with my scoliosis. It changed my life. He helped to align and balance my body as much as possible, and it honestly feels like I am walking on a cloud when I leave. BUT I’M STILL ON THE GROUND.

Anyway, the manipulations he makes are very small. In fact, he generally has to go by feel because the problem isn’t always visible to the naked eye. Just a small tweak here, a series of movements there, and I’m on my way, on my invisible cloud. The same goes for chiropractors and their adjustments. They make minor adjustments to your spine, and all of a sudden, your whole body feels completely different.

Here’s another example of a small tweak in our life that yielded a significant difference:

Emmett was not progressing with reading as fast as what his teacher wanted to see last year. I asked his teacher for a second home reading book, so we had two books on the go at home instead of one. This added another 5-10 minutes of reading every day, which I found to be quite minor—a minor adjustment—but the results were major. Emmett read literally double the number of books he would have read with just one at home, and he progressed much more quickly, and reading is no longer an issue. That small tweak made a world of difference.

You don’t have to experience a massive upheaval or do things completely differently in order to experience a significant change in your life. Sometimes those sorts of upheavals need to happen to get the change you need, but not always. 

This has changed my way of thinking about change. I’ve always been big on big changes. Maybe this is because I love the excitement, the new sense of opportunity and the bright light that comes with the idea of a big change. However, you can still promote significant change in your life without major life events happening by tweaking this here, and that there. Switch from one thing to another if something isn’t working. Add 10 minutes of something here, or subtract 10 minutes of something there. Eat this instead of that. Change your hand cream. Drink another glass of water. Tweak the way you view yourself in the world. Tweak the type of person you want to be—a mindset, a perception, the stopping or starting of a habit. When you read something that resonates with you, repeat it or remind yourself of it, and it will change you.

Honestly, sometimes if you let yourself think a little smaller—a little simpler—the answer for things that cause frustration, or aren't working, or take up too much of your time, are staring you right in the face. The causes of misalignment—the notes that are out of tune—are often corrected by a small adjustment, not major surgery. You can change your life for the better, a little bit at a time.


As Dr. Seuss is quoted as saying, “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” I love that quote so much that it’s hanging on my living room wall.