Making the connection

by Mike McCuolloch

While I was a student on the ITM Teacher Training Course, I was working as a Project Manager on a construction site. During this time, my friend Mark, a forklift driver on the site, had been a willing ‘student’ on whom I could practise my hands on training. Mark suffered from various physical complaints, but his main complaint was an upper back problem, for which he regularly visited a chiropractor to have it adjusted.

One day Mark was complaining to me about his back pain and the cost of his chiropractic visits. He was particularly upset by the recurrence of his problem after the chiropractic adjustments. He then turned and launched himself at his machine by reaching above his head to the handles placed either side of the cab door, yanking himself upwards, chin first, with his head pulled back and plonking himself into the seat.

Being an ITM student and a naturally inquisitive soul, I asked Mark if we could discuss this action.

I pointed to the handles on either side of the cab and asked Mark what if, when entering his cab he just placed his hands on the handles for balance, and lifting his leg placed his foot on to the step provided, and then, rather than throwing himself at his seat, he just straightened his leg and then sat down.  As I spoke, I demonstrated my method to him.

“What difference will that make?” Mark responded.

I asked him where his back hurt the most.

“Between the shoulder blades,” he responded.

“Well,” I continued, “what if the continuous thrusting of your head backwards and the over-working of your arms and back to drag yourself upwards might be connected to your trouble?”

Mark tried my method several times, then, in a doubting voice said that he still did not believe that this could be the cause of the problem that had haunted him for so long. In spite of his doubts, he agreed to try it out for a few days. This was a Wednesday.

By Friday when I checked with Mark, his back pain had disappeared but he still doubted any connection. By the following Tuesday he reported that his neck pain, which he thought of as being connected to his back problems had also disappeared. By the end of that week the pains in his upper chest (which he had worried were being caused by his heart) had also vanished.

More than six months later, Mark was still driving a forklift and none of his physical problems had re-occurred.

[Editor’s note: When we asked Mike if he would follow up this story with his friend Mark, he received this reply form him.]

"For many weeks after the pain had gone I could not completely accept the connection between no more pain and my change in behaviour. According to medical advice,

my back and neck were seriously damaged and I agreed with this assessment. Consequently, when Mike asked me why I was pain free, my initial reply was that I had somehow been healed and the damage now repaired. This to me at the time was more believable than what Mike was suggesting -- that my problem was something that I had been creating.

But because Mike kept asking me why things were different, I began to ask myself why things were different and subsequently I started to take more notice of what he was suggesting. As a result of our conversations I have changed. In fact, over Christmas, my father commented that there was something different about me. When I questioned him further, he said it was the way I was standing but he couldn't quite put his finger on exactly how it was different.

The funny thing was I hadn’t made any conscious decision to change the way I stood but I am now thinking more about what I do and the way I do it. I now have a copy of Don Weed’s book What You Think Is What You Get and I am wondering if I could apply this to many things in my life by asking the question, “Am I doing something that is causing other problems in my life?"

[According to Mike, Mark’s pain has been gone now for over a year and he still has not had a formal lesson.]