08/06/2026
David Bedrick BROKE ME this week with his article called Permission to Be Dangerous. (I’ve linked it in the comments, and you should read it; he does excellent work in the world.)
It broke me. It broke what I believed I SHOULD BE DOING in my work as a healing professional. It shattered my foundational beliefs and goals of helping people calm and regulate their nervous systems so they can heal.
Isn’t that what I do as a low-force, gentle chiropractor?
Gentle. Low-force. Calm and regulate the nervous system. Release the fascial tension so the body can unwind. Reset the nervous system from fight / flight to rest / digest.
I’ve built a 24-year practice on this. I’ve consumed a gazillion books, courses, trainings, seminars to immerse myself in this philosophy.
And he destroyed it with this paragraph.
“There is a place for calm, for harmony, for grief. …But healing must not be envisioned in any single direction. We must not assume the destination is always a more regulated, more understanding, more harmonious person. For many people - especially those whose anger resistance, and power have been suppressed - healing looks like radicalization. It looks like the emergence of something fierce and uncompromising. It looks like a person grounded in their own truth, less manipulable, more dangerous.
That person is not stuck. They are not unhealed. They are becoming themselves.”
And here I am, trying to calm and regulate the nervous system through the spinal signals and the fascial tension.
So I sat with it. And I started noticing something in my adjusting room.
I’ve yet to meet a woman in her 40’s or 50’s who isn’t tired. Or worn down. Who consistently sleeps through the night and wakes with energy to spare.
Don’t misunderstand me. Almost every single one of these tired women are also happy, appreciative, full of joy, and downright grateful for who they are and where they are.
Because you can lie awake at night, sleepless and annoyed, and still appreciate a nice bed. Or you can haul your stiff hip and knee out of bed in the morning and be deeply grateful that after a cup of coffee and time with a heating pad, you’ll be ready to take on the day.
But what if - what if - all that energy that’s locked down in tight muscles, in restricted fascia, in stiff joints, in the hunched shoulders and tense neck-that-leads-to-headaches —
What if that energy could be freed up?
Not so you that you could just sit and be calm and “regulated,” but so you’d have the energy to go bigger? Live a spicier life? Devote more time and mental resources to what really drives you and fires you up?
Resurrect the dreams and passion that maybe got shelved years ago, or follow the whispers of fun new things to try?
Who would you be without the tension?
Without the anxiety?
Without the chronic pain?
The opposite of all of these isn’t “calm” or “peaceful” or “unpained.”
Wouldn’t the opposite of these be - more alive? More energetic? More free? More loving? More spontaneous?
Or as David Bedrick said: “More dangerous?”
Not dangerous to yourself or reckless or irresponsible - but dangerous as in untamed. Limitless, versus restrained, quiet, passive. Or even less introverted, less worried about someone else’s opinion, less limited by a diagnosis (it’s just a word, not your identity!)
It’s dangerous to disagree with a diagnosis or label. And very powerful and freeing to do so.
I think we’ve all known someone who became her diagnosis and uses it to make her world smaller.
We don’t need to become smaller, dimmer, quieter, more “manageable.”
Each one of us showed up here and blundered through the bad day, the unfair days, the traumas, the disappointments AND STILL we’re here. A little more ragged, maybe, but still.
We’re here. With hearts that love. With laughter. With fierceness where we protect who and what we love. With generosity. With prayers for our friend’s husband in the hospital. We give to charities and Go Fund Me accounts, even when we don’t have much to spare.
We live, we love, we give, we shine.
We bring our energy, our skills, our words, our listening, and our strengths and weirdness because we’re here.
You’re here. You’re meant to be here. And we need more of you, not just the well-regulated and calm you.
One final David Bedrick quote: ”The world does not need more manageable people. It needs the fully arrived ones - the leaders, the artists, the fighters, the ones who don’t freeze.”
