Edina Chiropractor Dr. Aaron Flickstein, D.C. Emeritus (ret.)
"I was one chiropractic adjustment away from suicide - literally."
The constant pain I had managed to put myself in was finally about to take its deadly toll. I would fling myself in front of a speeding semi and end my pain, quickly and permanently (or so I imagined) if this doctor didn't take away my "killer" headache - but as you may have guessed he did.
You see, I wanted to serve people and truth. I fell in love with truth, wisdom and science. I studied hard in high school, earned a scholarship and attended the University of Michigan, receiving the Chicago Tribune Award as the Outstanding Freshman Midshipman and excelled academically but was vexed by the relativity of truth gathered through science as it was being pursued plus science's murky funding versus truth issues and the inability of logic to be used to prove anything, as an assumption that is unprovable would always have to be made.
One sunny Ann Arbor winter's day I had an epiphany; that a way must be provided for people to change their viewpoints or attitudes for change that was positive and self-sustaining to flourish. As I saw no hope of achieving this in an academic context I left academia behind for what I imagined to be for good.
Being irked I pursued industrial labor until I tore myself to shreds internally which led me to the chiropractor's door and saved my life.
Did I stop? NO. I piled on another huge heap of body abuse in a FOMOCO engine plant in Dearborn, working 6 to 7 days a week moving 300 - 400 pound engine blocks during 10-12 hour days, moving fast enough for even the company's time study analyst to conclude I was above my capacity. I did this for 26 months until I finally got out of industry.
I began teaching Yoga and Massage at the University of Michigan while sitting in on the Physiology of Stress and Medical School physiology. Two big insights emerged.
- If stress has its way you will slowly drown in a pool of it as your nervous system goes through its best attempt to save you from yourself or your circumstances. All the while you and I will be thinking we're fine and only breathing fresh pure air because the stresses our nerve systems store are odorless, colorless, mass-less and, initially, have no symptoms.
- Only when someone engaged in an approach to their nervous system, versus their muscular system addressed so well by massage, would their underlying patterns of distortion change, no matter how limber, strong and relaxed I could help them get with Yoga and massage.
So, despite being invited into graduate programs in biochemistry and in the University of Michigan Department of Physiology I decided to learn how to apply my academic interests to help humanity in a more direct way, as I had been helped.
I undertook two more years of undergrad work and moved to Minnesota with 5 1/2 years of basic science and humanities, some of my graduate science also handled, two years of studying and teaching Applied Kinesiology, seven years of integrating Natural Foods and Macrobiotic teachings into my lifestyle, a consultancy in Rebirthing, a membership in a fellowship of yoga students who each works on realizing our creator within and bringing forth goodness into the world, and a burning desire to learn Homeopathy and Bioenergetic Psychotherapy as described by Al Lowen in his "Fear of Life" and "Betrayal of the Body", as well as to further my study of AK and Traditional Chinese Medicine while developing a comprehensive understanding of how to recreate or preserve health naturally by all effective means.
For moving, agility, reaction time, eye hand co-ordination and keeping the brain young, nothing else holds the fascination and actual amount of time playing plus my "need for speed" as well as table tennis. You'll find me bent (with excellent posture)on doing my best with the balls hit to me 3-6 days a week. I've held the State Champion title in my division twice in the last 10 years and play to enjoy every point.
Two of my favorite practice members live with us, Rocky the pug and Dipper the white lap dog and they enjoy having their editing as well as belly rubs - lots of belly rubs! We all live with my sweetheart Maren with whom I've been in love for ten years.
My daughter Joy is now 21 and attending Northern Arizona University where she's studying business and design. She's enjoying sorority membership and some of the weather the mountains at 7500 feet have to offer but not so much the "snow and more blowing snow".
I really want to experience the state of balanced well being I work to rekindle in others - to have what I "sell". Thus, my life revolves around having the most fun while acting to recover or sustain high level wellness.
The wellness supplements I recommend are the ones I take too. My biggest meal is usually lunch. I have some form of shake or healthy protein based breakfast 6 days a week. I keep animal intake in the 5-7% range of total calories, the "keep your cancer cells dormant" range.
I do resistance training daily, with heavier workouts twice a week. My aerobics comes from breathing exercises (e.g. I set my high school underwater swimming record at 75 yards on one breath while training using the "breathe as deep and slowly as you can until you fall asleep" regimen suggested by my wrestling coach). I bounce on competition level trampolines weekly to keep my aerobics at peak without joint trauma.
As I was a gymnast before I was a Yoga teacher I have plenty of work to do to regain my former power to weight ratio (i.e. 10 push-ups from handstand to headstand and up again without rest in the middle of the floor)and exceptional flexibility (i.e. bending over backwards, putting my palms on the floor with arms and legs straight and kicking up into a handstand). Mostly I do daily self-editing work to overcome accidents and industrial repetitive twisting, reaching, pushing and pulling trauma.
Meditation as per Self Realization Fellowship (see Autobiography of a Yogi), contemplative non-dual devotion to the Divine Source of all, Taoist energetics, the love, joy, peace visualization of drops spreading from the pond of a calm heart, Tai Chi Chuan and Aikido practice round out my Moving Well program.
Enough about me.
What shall we help you get over, get rid of, or regain?
Using this leading edge blend of approaches together really can bring new hope to you, even when the Mayo Clinic says "nothing can be done".
Give me a call or email me at the link below so I can help you take your next step towards better health.
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