Drop. Pop. Exhale. I was recently adjusting someone, and in the midst of the visit, they asked, "Why are you always working on that same spot?" I paused for a moment, as I do when I'm presented with a question that greatly challenges me, and thought, "Why do I find myself working on some of the same areas with people? Should I have transitioned to another area by now? How quickly should someone's body change?"



Let's say you throw a single shirt into your laundry pile every day, for years. Aside from your toddler coming to "help" you with the laundry, you let the shirts pile up without doing anything with them. What's going to happen after several years of adding one shirt to the pile each day? You'll have a whopping big pile! Now, let's say you hire someone to help you find the bottom of the laundry pile because you're beyond overwhelmed. This laundry pile picker-upper – who you found for a great deal on Etsy – starts by taking the shirt on the top of the pile. They spend a couple of hours doing that, and then they come back the next day, and the next, and the next, and the next. And you're wondering, "Why on earth do they keep having to come back?" Because you'd been adding shirts to the pile every day for years. Years. Removing all the shirts from the laundry takes two things: time and consistency.

The same goes for your adjustments. You've been living a certain way for years – similar postures, similar shoes, and in general, similar habits. You've been putting shirts in the laundry every day. And just like the picker-upper needs time and consistency to do the same thing to help you get to the bottom of the pile, your body needs time and consistency to see change. Why do you go back to "the same" fitness classes you've already done? Because today is a new day and you're a different person than yesterday (my morning Wheeties cereal box used to remind me of that). It'd be great if you only had to go to that fitness class once and get all the results ever, but it doesn't work like that! Your body needs time and consistency.

While it may seem like we're working on "the same" spots, on many occasions, it's a slightly different spot. Just like how every day your laundry picker-upper person picks up something that looks the same – a shirt – each shirt is different. Maybe one is your old sports shirt from high school, one is that Lulu workout shirt your best friend got you, and one is that shirt your grandma got you for Christmas one year that says "Grandma's trouble maker." So while we may be pressing and pushing on your lower back, one day we may be improving your lower lumbar spine's flexion, one day it's your sacroiliac joints' ability to counter-nutate (move back). One day, it's releasing the erector spinae muscle group: same area, dramatically different shirts.

A mom of five kiddos reinforced this lesson of time and consistency for me. She came in with some lower back and foot pain that started after her recent birth. We "looked through her laundry" and found some stuff to work on in her ankles, pelvis, and mid-back. Each time she came in, I was finding the same stiff areas: ankles, pelvis, and mid-back. I started thinking to myself, "Self, why is it always the same areas that feel stiff on her? Is it something I'm missing? Am I not adjusting those areas correctly?" I really wrestled with this. Then one day, she comes in after returning from a long family road trip, one where she would have previously been in "incredible amounts of pain." She enters the room with this peaceful energy about her and says, "By the grace of God and whatever we've been doing here, this is the best my body has felt after a long road trip." Selah.

This illustrated two things for me: 1) God is always in control. Of everything. Including taking away pain. 2) Time and consistency of working on "the same areas" bear much fruit. The most important work is usually the most repetitive, done intentionally day after day. So if you feel like your laundry room is always full, I'll give you the contact for that laundry picker-upper person, so they can do the work, while you take your "helper" kiddos to the park. Works at our house! (In which I'm on park duty, and my wife is on picker-upper duty).