Big vs. Stable Change

Don't get me wrong, I work hard to get people out of care as fast as possible, and sometimes big, fast changes can be stable, but there is a critical difference between a dramatic flash in the pan change and a long-term, stable one.⁣⁣
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The difference is how much your system can integrate and hang on to. There are many ways to “trick” your system into feeling less pain or feeling more grounded and relaxed, but they often revert in a short time.⁣⁣
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I remember doing a demo for Equinox trainers several years ago, and I got a volunteer to increase his range of motion dramatically in several joints. People ooh'd and ahh'd, but I warned them against being so impressed. I asked the volunteer to do some jumping jacks, and then we retested his movement. Almost everything went back to its original measurement.⁣⁣
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12 jumping jacks broke the porcelain doll of “big change” we just made.⁣⁣
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That doesn't make what we did wrong, it just wasn't complete or significant enough.⁣⁣
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(side note: next time you see an impressive before and after table test on IG, remember that 12 jumping jacks just might blow the magic act 🤷🏻‍♂️)⁣⁣
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Whether we are addressing chronic pain or your body's response to stress and anxiety, ultimately we're teaching your system to do something different. In therapy, we're not adding or subtracting anything from your body like in surgery or pharmacology, we are stimulating the system to learn and adapt. ⁣⁣
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And like all learning, it takes repetition and significance.⁣
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Of course depending on what we're working on, the timeline of change will be different. Resolving a shoulder tweak that’s only a few weeks old is different than reorganizing a stress, anxiety, or post-traumatic response, but the goal is to find the fastest rate at which your system can integrate change. ⁣⁣
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And hey listen, sometimes we get a big, stable change right away, which is great. However, there are ways we can check up on the stability of that change, and THAT’S what guides our process together. Not some Houdini act that disappears on you 12 jumping jacks later.