ChiroEurope is a conference that occurs twice a year, spring and autumn, inclusively catering for Chiro’s, Chiropractic assistants, students, friends and family and anyone who’s interested in Chiropractic care. The long weekend consists of a series of speakers who aim to challenge, support, inspire, share their miracles, give advice and ultimately bring out the best in every single person in the room. Each speaker brings a touch of magic and positive energy which irrevocably infects each avid listener over the course of the weekend, leaving this feeling of elation and practical determination to start making positive changes in your own life, be it personally or professionally, or most probably both.
I had the fortune of attending ChiroEurope in April 2017 with my mum and her Chiropractic colleagues from the Cowes Chiropractic Clinic (CCC on the Isle of Wight). It was a four day event, held at the Hotel IPV Palace and Spa, situated in beautiful Malaga in southern Spain. The conference attracts students and professionals from all over the globe and was an amalgamation of some of the brightest and best minds of the chiropractic world, and I was honoured to be there as a guest. I was gifted this opportunity because, conveniently, my mum knows me pretty well and after having gone the year before, thought that I would really enjoy it and get a lot out of it so I was invited along by Rebecca and will be eternally grateful for the kindness they showed me.
Let me introduce myself. I’m a current student of Manchester Uni studying Biomedical Sciences, purely because I love learning about how the human body works and have a passion for health and making people better. I live by a holistic health philosophy and anything that promotes wellbeing and happiness. Before ChiroEurope, I had had a few chiropractic treatments and decided that I liked Chiropractic and that it matched my beliefs and outlook on life. I didn’t know too much about the science or the methods, but I let my curiosity guide me, and found something that I now truly love, and will be a consistent part of my health routine (just as important as eating right and exercising) for the rest of my life.
Those four days took me on a journey of self-reflection and reconnection, culminating in a love for the profession that I never thought I would have. ChiroEurope has taken me from a position of curious observation, to literally wanting to marry a Chiropractor so I can be a part of that world forever. My list of criteria for the love of my life has been drastically shortened and now contains just that one item. And for good reason. I think to become a Chiropractor, your main aim in life has to be to do good and to help people. For those of you reading who don’t know much about Chiropractic, don’t worry, neither did I, and I want to share with you everything that I learnt. I imagine that even a lot of Chiropractors and students have no idea what their own potential is until they experience ChiroEurope. It will open doors inside your mind you didn’t even know were there; introduce you to choices you didn’t know you had; and enable you to adjust in an inspired way in order to do the most good.
For you non-Chiro’s, an adjustment is just a manipulation of the spine in order to remove nerve interference. Let me explain that. Every second, thousands of messages are being sent around your body in order to communicate and work efficiently. Your body is a powerful, dynamic, miracle that is capable of self-regulation, self-renewal and self-repair. Your body can heal itself. Do your wounds gape open forever when you get cut, or do they close? You have a power within your body, a life force, whatever you want to call it, that is able to heal itself and grow. The power that made your body, can also heal your body. It’s unequivocal. Your body has an immune system that works tirelessly to fend off harmful invaders, or anything that threatens the overall health of the whole. Our digestive system turns what you eat, into you. It really is true, you are what you eat. You are that coffee you drank this morning and that chocolate you ate last night. It gets broken down, and turned into lots of little molecules and chemicals which get incorporated into your eyes, heart, skin, blood, everything. Our brain is a beautifully designed processor and communicator which can simultaneously coordinate millions of actions, with the ultimate goal of survival, health and love. We have evolved lots of clever ways of transmitting these messages around the body so that it all functions in harmony and in health. These messages include electrical and chemical impulses through our neurons which travel out of the brain, down the brain stem and then exit out into the body. And what Chiropractic does, is it removes the interference between your brain and your body by adjusting and aligning the spinal cord so it can protect the most important part of you: the brain and brain stem. Unfortunately as humans, we tend to get injured a lot, and our lives are built around habit; habits put strain on the body. A repeated movement can cause your skeleton to become misaligned, and put pressure on certain neurons, causing them to over and under fire, messing with the natural balance of the body. Chiropractic treatment removes these pressures, allowing the body to function at its optimal. A misconception is that Chiropractors only deal with posture, back pain, neck pain and headaches. Vitalistic Chiropractors unlock the body’s innate potential, and allow it to do what it does best.
This was ChiroEurope. Even as a non-Chiropractor, I still felt the awe and admiration for all that our bodies do, and the absolute dedication to healing that all of these chiropractors had; a complete faith in the brilliance of the human body, and a calling to help as many people as possible.
All the guests and speakers shared this passion for health, happiness and humanity. Some were more practical, and gave direct advice in successfully building your own practice, gaining new clients, managing, marketing, communicating etc. And some were there to plug you in, turn you on, and charge you up; sharing their enthusiasm, passion and love of life. There were lots of miracles shared on the ChiroEurope stage which left you tingling and breathless, but a lot of miracles in Chiropractic often happen beneath the surface, where you can’t always see what’s going on. The nature of our Western society is to need a quick fix for everything, and where sometimes Chiropractic is a quick fix, more often than not restoring the natural balance of the body holistically and sustainably actually takes a little while and requires a bit of perseverance.
So I can whole-heartedly say that the Chiropractic profession has a new advocate with a fairly loud voice (metaphorically of course, I won’t be wandering the streets shouting at everyone to go and see a Chiropractor, not often anyway), and I promise to pass on this knowledge to anyone who is open-minded enough to listen. So, on a final note, my last piece of advice, GO AND SEE YOUR CHIROPRACTOR.
Sophie Victoria Manley 