Dr. Steve Gardner

I didn’t even know what a chiropractor was growing up.  My Dad, after all, was a medical doctor. When I tried it out as a young man for neck and shoulder pain, I wasn’t too impressed.  Well, maybe it did help. Just so happened though, picking the closest one to where I worked, it seemed too much like an assembly line to me.

It wasn’t until I found myself working for a chiropractor, after being on crutches from a bicycle accident in 1989, that things started to change.  Even before then, it seemed that the craniosactral therapy I was receiving from an osteopath was making a profound impact on my healing.  Now I was getting adjusted by my boss, Dr. Tom Pool every once in a while, assisted by his wife Dhonda.  It felt good, nothing life-changing, but he must have been doing something right.  He was, after all a skilled practitioner of the Gonstead technique of chiropractic adjusting.

Then one day, he decided to adopt the Network Spinal system of adjusting.  Being curious, I gave it a shot.  When he said that he was done, I got up thinking to myself, “You gotta be kidding.  That’s it?  That’s all you’re going to do?  Oh well, I guess it’s one of those New Age things he’s trying out.”  Gee, in looking back, I don’t think I had any smirk on my face.  I was way too shy at that age.

But strangely enough, I kept wanting to go back for more.  Maybe it was just the sense of clarity along with better meditations I was having.  I was in my mid 30’s, with life starting to become flat and dull.  The excitement of my younger years was gone.  What impressed me the most, was not that any intermittent neck pain and low back pain disappeared over the following weeks (or was it months?  I don’t remember.)  It was that I was starting to “smell the roses” again.  Feeling my feelings more, as opposed to “being in my head”, as they say.  Boy, was I in my head!  I had to be more in my head than anyone on the planet.  I felt so much like an out-of-control puppet on a string, there were times when I was scared of what I was going to do or say next.

Fast forward about a year later, Dr. Pool, always having something interesting to say, happened to mention that the spinal cord inside the spinal canal, being continuous with the brain, that both together are called the central nervous system considered to be the master control system for the entire body.  No one had ever told me that.  (To this day, I don’t know why they don’t teach that in our schools.  Not even in my elective high school anatomy lessons.  I’ve been told that’s not the case in European schools.)

Well, there I was, with experience in craniosacral therapy, thanks to the encouragement of my osteopath to take course work in it.  I was already practicing shiatsu and ayurveda, where I worked for Dr. Pool and his wife.  Dr. Pool’s patients sure looked like they enjoyed having their spinal cords adjusted, as one way of putting it, with the same magical touch he was using on me.  I now knew that the spine was key to our overall health.

So one day driving to work, the thought came to me, “Why not go for it and become a chiropractor myself?”  As soon as I had that thought, it was like a bolt of inspirational lighting coming through me.  I’ll never forget that moment.  Ever since then, it’s been as if I was being led all along towards realizing more and more of my life purpose that continues to grow to this day – becoming more aligned with what it takes to help other people become more aligned with their life purpose.  Or at least to dust it off, helping people overwhelmed by trauma, stress, pain, disabilities, and disabling diseases so it becomes easier for them to get back on their life path’s journey they were meant to serve.

Ever since I started my chiropractic practice December, 1996, it never fails to amaze me what we are all capable of.  I never thought for a moment that the healing magic was coming from something that I was uniquely endowed with.  I am determined to bring forth the idea, as an irresistible, growing attraction, that healing ourselves and loved ones is something we can all grow in naturally, just like most people can be taught to sing or whistle, even though we may not all be professional musicians.

As soon as I completed my doctorate of chiropractic in 1996, I committed myself to staying on top of the latest advancements in my discipline, attending every Network Care seminar program that had the possibility of teaching something new.  Usually about 3-5 programs each year in the first 20 years of my practice.  Donny Epstein and his wife Jackie got to know me very well.  I got to be on a first name basis with so many of my dear colleagues.  I was one of the first 100 chiropractors to receive the highest level of certification available in this cutting edge, neurological work, as well as one of the first dozen or so to be certified as a practitioner of Network Care’s home instruction practice – Somato Respiratory Integration.  

In 2008, I started going to Manhattan every month to observe and experience the work of Cliff Inkles, the first network chiropractor, as Donny likes to call him.  Over the years, Dr. Cliff has given me the greatest secret of all – far more valuable than all the gifts of my formal training;  He has shown me how the practice of Network Spinal Care is a direct vehicle for tapping me right into our wisdom-Creator source.  That wisdom which unfolds our skill level in anything we practice.

Healing, after all, means to make whole again.  From the inside, out to wherever we place our attention in the world at large.  My mission is to show anyone interested how easy it is to tap into our wisdom source, at least in regards to healing.