Maybe I’m nervous because it would feel disingenuous to be too optimistic.  Maybe the manta ray sized butterfly in my stomach is a good thing.  Maybe I put too much pressure on myself to validate this weird need to sometimes be uncomfortable.  Maybe it’s because I’m turning fifty and I need to remind myself of my relevance. 

When we bought our first sailboat 2.5 years ago, a 331 Beneteau, we did it with stars in our eyes and discovery in our hearts.  We did it with a bit of a “stick it to the man” attitude.  We were in the mood for a romantic affair with freedom.  

What we found hasn’t been what we would describe as a learning curve but a pro-pulsed rocket ship.  Straight up.  We’ve taken sailing courses but, most of our lessons have been served on a platter of “oh…that’s why we don’t THAT!”.   Those all hands on deck moments where a brief eye to eye glance serves as a signed and sealed agreement between Darin and I to “never do it that way again!”.   Those experiential, palpably bra...

I lost my affinity for writing when I lost my mom.  For two years, I toiled over and judged myself for having lost - it.  I distracted myself while aimlessly and sometimes frantically looking everywhere for the intangible.

I summoned up some patience, waiting for the writing to return.  But it didn’t return.  

I looked before, behind and around me for how the writing and my mother were connected but couldn’t find a single thread to follow.

I tried to write.  I tried to reunite myself with the love for it.  But the “trying” was tedious and the labor of it bore an imposter.  A stranger with a pen in her hand.  I was like a kid writing an essay and carefully choosing senseless words that sounded “smart”.  I was trying to prove something to someone, I just didn’t know who. 

I couldn’t find myself anywhere on this small but impenetrable landscape of the blank page.

The vacuum left by the loss of my mom, by the one who’d held onto me the tightest was filled with a void  that anchored it...

As the Twig is Bent, so Grows the Tree - What to look for in children to help them always be a step ahead.

When I was a kid, my mother, who learned from her mother would tell me (sometimes daily) to suck in my belly and stand up straight.  It was usually uncomfortable to do and I didn’t understand why the suggestion regularly begot the exaggerated and dramatic rolling of eyes. 

Her perspective was that when you stood up tall and straight, you looked and behaved like a “lady”.  She never seemed to mind the worms in my pockets or the fish guts under my fingernails as much as she minded - my slouching.

I should have known that my mother was onto something.

There’s a reason that animals in the wild favor a mate with a vibrant build and a strong, healthy posture.  Rabbits, Ducks, Lions and birds, just to name a few, innately understand that a healthy posture is the thumbprint marking to the likely-hood of better health outcomes and a longer, stronger life.

Posture is the window to t...

Check out Dr. Anik’s recipe for easy organic energy balls!

This recipe is incredibly easy to follow to make a tasty and filling snack.

Welcome to Advantage Chiropractic & Massage! For over 2 decades we have been empowering the families of our community to take charge of their health. At Advantage Chiropractic, we ignite the spark.

Have you checked your posture recently? 

Spring time awakens and re-births so much sleeping beauty, this innate grace goes unnoticed until everything starts to bud, until the most delicate greens begin to stretch their bodies from the ground and …. until the dormant trees come back to life and start to release their pollen.

The amazement of Spring, for a lot of people turns into the brain fog and watery gaze of counting the days until the pollens, molds and dust mites transmorph into anything that can show up as different and “could the next month and season please get here”…..because breathing from the nose and not gauging at our itchy eyes is not too much to ask for.

Why is it that some of us go through spring in la la land like chirping birds and some of us are afraid to go outside because we can’t stay on top of our allergies and we live in Spring misery?

We’ve been taught to blame it on the trees, grasses and pollens but let’s give these guys a break. If the buds and the wind swept fuzz of pollens were truly the cause...

Over the past several years, our kids have largely been “removed” from their lives. Although we’re grateful for the slow pace and the one-on-one time, there is great concern over the impact that this has had on the brain development of our kids.

Our neurodevelopment depends on critical windows of time in which certain life experiences will act as a trigger for brain maturation. We are genetically designed to express appropriate brain development in response to specific interactions with our environment. These critical windows exist in age-specific clusters from birth until our early to mid-twenties.

How we experience our world in the first two decades shapes our neurological outcomes. Epigenetics teaches us that we have specific genes responsible for healthy development, but these genes can remain dormant in the absence of specific cues. Missed critical windows will affect how we perceive our environment and how we interact with our world both physically and emotionally.

The birth o...