In a conversation with a new patient last week I made a comment about myself and my stance with life that clarified feelings that I have had a hard time putting into words. What I said was, “I refuse to be an authority because it prevents me from having integrous (integrity based) relationships with others.” This comment was made in response to the patient’s history of not being treated respectfully by medical doctors in the past.
I have no problem being an expert in some areas and knowledgeable in lots of other areas. I have no problem giving expert opinions and I am certainly free with my perspectives and viewpoints on matters of a philosophical and spiritual nature, but being an authority is a whole different kind of creature for me.
I take the definition of authority from the Latin word auctor, meaning master, leader, and author. The most commonly used meaning for authority today is: control, influence, denotes a power or right to direct the actions or thoughts of others. I don’t see myself as having that right.
I do see myself as the authority in and of my own life. I see myself as the author of my life. I have the right – more than that – the obligation to direct my own actions and thoughts. But to try to direct the actions or thoughts of others, to me, is a direct violation of spiritual law. If I am to treat others as I treat myself, then I must respect their right to choose their own actions and thoughts.
I have built my practice around this perspective. I educate, advise, and support, but I never take the authority position where I am willing to tell someone what they “should” do. I can say what I might do in their situation, but I am not the author of their life, they are. I insist each patient make his or her own choices, not me. My assumptions about what is best and what the patient “needs” are merely projections of what I would like. This is where I see being an authority is blocking integrous relationships. Integrity in a relationship requires two parties participating from their own centers. If I am projecting my wants and likes onto another person, I am only having a relationship with myself. Even my Chiropractic adjustments and corrections are directed by responses from the patient’s body, not my ideas of what I might think they need.
This stance I have does not suit many people. People often want me to be the authority so that I take on the responsibility for their problems. They want me to rewrite the script of their lives that has created the pain they are in. I can’t do that. I know lots of “authority figures” want to believe that they can rewrite other people’s lives into a version they think is “right.” They can’t, but they sure try.
Creation is an inside-out process. Your life is an inside-out flow of continuous creative energies being expressed moment-by-moment. No one can do that for you. The use of power and control has the ability to squash creative energies. Power and control can inhibit the expression of the life force in others, but it can never make it naturally be what “they” want. Natural creation is driven by inspiration and personal needs. It is not driven by the wants and demands of others.
A doctor who demands that you believe what they say is right and threatens to withhold care if you do not do just what they say, needs to be fired in my book. That is not the kind of support for my health that I want. Many people willingly go along with such doctors because they do not want the responsibility for their own health. They do not want to have to actually change what they are doing in their lives in order to get different results. Such doctors understand this, and so you will almost never hear them demand significant lifestyle changes from their patients. Their goal is to come up with a cocktail of drugs that will compensate for bad lifestyle choices instead. That is why the average 65 year old is on 10 medications.
Sorry, I am not willing to take responsibility for a patient’s choices in their life, and I certainly can not magically make their choices produce different results.
Instead I educate, advise, and support. Part of my problem is that I don’t actually believe that people make bad choices. They make choices I would not make, but they are supposed to make different choices. Their life goals and purposes are different from mine. The lessons they are here to learn are different. So of course their choices and outcomes will be different from mine.
We still need authority figures. All that difference and self-direction can and does get messy mixed in with all the other differences. Civilization requires harmony in order to exist. Participation agreements in order to highlight the need for reciprocal respect of these differences while creating harmonious co-creations are vital. Without it, how do you know which side of the road to drive down? We give the command of law to authorities to enforce these agreements. We create systems of education to transmit these agreements to new members of society.
But what happens when these authorities decide that they know what is best for us, and their choices should be our choices? They envision a future of perfect harmony because everyone is forced to see life their way. They don’t see that this is impossible. Everyone is different inside. Our creations will necessarily be different. Perfect harmony is impossible. When force is used to suppress individual creation, life dies. The only perfect harmony is a graveyard.
Integrity acts from respect. Power and force are inherently disrespectful. So I deny the usual power of the doctor position. I prefer the mutually respectful relationships I have with my patients. It makes me terrible at marketing my services and setting up treatment plans, but I am ok with that. I let my patients feel when they might enjoy the benefit of my services. I educate, advise, and support. That is the way I love to practice.