Awaken the Doctor from Within

By Dr. Raymond Rickards

This book will reestablish how you look at health, happiness, and fulfillment.

Raymond Rickards draws on his decades of experience as a chiropractor seeing thousands of patients with a variety of ailments to share insights and strategies to help you move toward vibrant health.

In straightforward language—and without any additional sales pitch—he provides a blueprint that will help you:
• free yourself from the rut of sickness and disease;
• find a more uplifting approach to health and well-being;
• develop habits that will help you attain optimum health.
The author also shares his personal story of growing up in Los Angeles, where he was indoctrinated with mainstream medical thinking and religious dogma. While it was not easy to find the courage to explore diverse ways of thinking, it changed his life, paving the way for him to have more vigor and health at age sixty-nine than most thirty-year-old men.
Get practical, proven ways to bolster your health and move toward a vibrant life with the lessons and insights in Awaken the Doctor from Within.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Sep 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798765232866

Dr. Raymond Rickards

Raymond Rickards, who earned a Doctor of Chiropractic degree, has been in practice for forty-three years. He is also an author and speaker with experience in academia. He wrote this book to help others move toward a vibrant life adventure.

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Copyright © 2022 Raymond Rickards, D.C.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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Print information available on the last page.

ISBN: 979-8-7652-3285-9 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-7652-3286-6 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 09/28/2022

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, I would like to thank my loving wife Brenda for her support and muse-like advice. This has been a two-year endeavor, and her support is so important to me for some of the out-of-the-box principles that are taught in this book.

Connor Archer is the illustrator of the front cover and many of the images in this book. He was of great help in the editing process and is in chiropractic college as of the date of this publication. Without his help, there would be no finished product.

My publisher Lucas and Balboa Press have been supportive throughout this project, and I appreciate them.

I want to thank my patients of forty-three years in practice who have taught and shown me proof of the principles described in this work.

My late father and wonderful man, Robert Rickards, MD, was my early mentor, and even though I did not exactly follow in his footsteps, I did become a doctor, just not a medical doctor.

Karen Velazquez, my faithful assistant in my chiropractic clinic, deserves much credit for giving me her input in the early editing of this book.

I give credit to the late B. J. Palmer, the first true scientist of chiropractic, who instilled the freedom of choice in health decisions away from the typical orthodox medical dogma.

And last, I want to thank you, the reader, for being an audience for this inspired work. After all, what is an author or doctor without his readers and patients?

CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

PART 1

Chapter 1: Purpose

Chapter 2: The Safety Pin Cycle

Chapter 3: Adaptation Complies with Purpose

Chapter 4: Changing Our Relativity toward Health

Chapter 5: The Diagnosis Game

Chapter 6: Deductive versus Inductive Reasoning as It Relates to Health.

Chapter 7: Set the Stage for Healing

Chapter 8: Fear versus Desire

Chapter 9: Instant Gratification and Addiction

Chapter 10: Our Divine Compass

Chapter 11: Cause Management versus Pain Management

Chapter 12: Limiting Factors in the Healing Process

Chapter 13: We Are All Different yet the Same

Chapter 14: The Catalyst

Chapter 15: The Game Plan

PART 2

Chapter 1: The Breakdown

Chapter 2: Innate Nutrition

Chapter 3: Innate Exercise

Chapter 4: Sanitation

Chapter 5: Spinal Alignment

Chapter 6: Attaining the Calm Mind and One’s Purpose

Chapter 7: Living in Gratitude

Chapter 8: Awakening the Doctor Within

PART 3

My Story of How and Why

Bibliography

FOREWORD

I have known Dr. Ray for over thirty years. I would refer to him as the innate scientist. His third book, Awaken the Doctor from Within, is a culmination of forty-three years of active clinical chiropractic practice, along with studies of universal or natural laws particularly, as they have related to maximizing human potential, health, and well-being.

He has a unique perspective on health and wellness. His father was a medical doctor, and so he was raised to follow in his father’s footsteps. Steeped in the traditional medical model as a youth, his world changed when his father died early from medical mistakes—his father practiced what he preached.

Ultimately, Dr. Ray did become a doctor but a doctor of chiropractic (DC). His inspired mission to teach people his new and more well-rounded and natural healing perspective and principles expanded his patients’ healing potentials and horizons. He teaches the principles he gleaned from his broad studies concerning all aspects of how people could achieve their greatest wellness quotient.

In this comprehensive and insightful book, he maps out what it takes to mentally cross the bridge to trusting our own innate ability to heal. He also outlines each universal law of nature from a natural healing perspective. I find his book to be an imperative to those on the cusp of moving from the traditional external medical approach to trusting the doctor from within.

Part 1 of his book is eloquently written to set the stage for your new attitude to health and well-being. His way of breaking down the reality of where we are now and where we are capable of going is brilliant.

Part 2 is irreproducible in that only forty-three years of experience and his interesting upbringing can give you this results-oriented approach to inner health.

What makes this book so important is the backdrop of his spiritual awakening leading to a higher level of awareness and healing consciousness. He adroitly leads you from a fearful symptom/disease perspective to a more liberated purposeful view that includes practical guidelines that you can use immediately.

I have studied the art of healing and many of the mysteries of the universe for decades, and Dr. Ray’s work encompasses the irrefutable natural guidelines that have been given to us on this wonderful planet called earth.

John Demartini, DC

International best-selling author of

Count Your Blessings – The Healing Power of Gratitude and Love

PREFACE

This work is divided into three parts. They are all equally important to get the most out of this book. A lifetime of contemplation, work, and experience has brought me to many conclusions. Most books are about conclusions, but I believe it is important to understand how and why the conclusions evolved.

Part 1 is about getting ourselves out of the rut of sickness and disease. It is all about changing our unsuccessful beliefs. If you are reading this book, you are seeking a more uplifting approach to health and well-being. This is the place. You will want to have an open mind because of your unsuccessful lifetime beliefs. I assure you it will be worth it. It took me a lifetime to improve my beliefs. I am proud to say I practice the content of this book, and I have more vigor and health at sixty-nine than most thirty-year-old men.

Part 2 is about the nuts and bolts of what to do to attain optimum health and well-being. There is nothing like the forty-three years of working with patients to know what works and what does not. Many books have concepts created in a lab or research study, but when the rubber meets the road, these ideas do not apply, work, or seem practical. The gems I have to offer are tread proven. Along with a thirst for academia, I have had approximately 221,000 patient visits to draw my information. This blend of experience and study has impelled me to share what I have learned.

Part 3 is about my story, how and why. I was raised in Los Angeles, heavily indoctrinated by mainstream medical thinking and religious dogma. I can say I feel free now to explore all the different options in the care of my body and soul. It did not come easy, but what an adventure. This section is about my adventure. I feel it will stir what you already internally know but have not had the catalyst to explore. This may be the most important part of this book because it is a testimonial that the changes can be done and be fun. The need to bang your head in decisions about sickness and symptoms are not needed when health and wellness are your staples of thought.

In many self-help books, there are usually hooks and motives. You must now go to my seminar to learn what is important. You need to go online to get the scripts or charts to complete the book’s objective. The most contriving part is leaving the reader a void of now having to sign up with the author for their coaching. Usually, the coach is not the author, instead one of his previous students and is unusually pricey. I am all about self-improvement, but health information needs to be free. What you do with the information in the changing of your life is the only cost. Be it better quality food, exercise plans, or new directions of life, these options are your personal costs and let us leave it at that.

This book is free and clean with no attachments to any seminars, online courses, or group/personal coaching. This book stands on its own.

I am excited for you. Dig in and achieve your true potential!

INTRODUCTION

Get ready for the ride of your life. This book will completely reestablish your way of looking at health, happiness, and fulfillment. There is a lot to be said about science and research but not enough about experience from a doctor’s viewpoint.

As a practicing chiropractor for forty-three years, I have seen over twenty thousand patients with a variety of ailments. Many people don’t realize that chiropractors take on a general practitioner role. Not only do we work with headaches, back pain, and neck pain but also any condition that is nerve-related. We call these conditions neurogenic. In other words, it originated from the nervous system. When looking at anatomy, almost any condition can have a connection to a poor spine and a resultant malfunctioning nervous system.

My point is that my experience as a natural doctor, combined with circumstances of my upbringing, has given me an elevated look at health care not found in the literature. For these reasons I am writing this book.

My youth was a classic study in how out of balance our views can be regarding health. My father was Robert Joseph Rickards, MD, a man totally committed to his patients and to the traditional medical approach.

As a physician’s son, I had a precocious knowledge of vaccinations, disease, medication, and surgery. I can still remember one day after school, when I stopped to pet a neighborhood dog. When he responded with a wet and sloppy kiss on my face, I ran all the way home, certain that I had contracted rabies. I was convinced that I would need those dreaded and notoriously-painful injections.

Catching tetanus was another great fear—this one ongoing. I recall one incident when a fall from my bike resulted in a minor abrasion. I was so certain that I’d contracted tetanus that I suffered complete textbook lock-jaw symptoms—for hours.

Even while studying in chiropractic college, my paranoid mind believed that I had lymphoma every time I experienced the slightest lymph node enlargement. In time, however, I discovered that I was merely sensitive to pasteurized milk products.

Was I a world-class hypochondriac or just a product of my environment?

Throughout my childhood, my father, the healer, was chronically ill with bleeding ulcers. During a twenty-year period, he endured ten major abdominal surgeries. As he suffered through each excruciating procedure, I believed they were necessary to save his life. Ultimately, he died at the age of forty-seven, from surgical complications and pneumonia. I was only eleven at the time.

In my early years, I thought doctors were gods. I sought them out for the slightest illness, hoping for a quick diagnosis so I could be cured. If I had a pain that didn’t go away, my family doctor would poke me, examine me, and say, You’re okay, no cancer or anything serious. I would leave feeling immensely relieved, much like someone who had just gone to confession.

A major part of my consciousness revolved around a dread of disease and the doctor’s diagnosis, procedures, or treatment. I was hardwired and to some degree, brainwashed into thinking the medical model of diagnosis and treatment of disease was the only way.

Does any of this sound familiar? From the vantage point of forty-three years in chiropractic practice, I realize now that I am not the only one who had these fears. In fact, from what I have seen in my patients, this kind of paranoia seems to affect most Americans to some degree or another.

I feel fortunate that I was raised by my medical doctor father and now have stepped away to becoming a natural healer as a chiropractor. This has given me a unique perspective on how to navigate a plan for natural healing while integrating my backdrop of medical indoctrination.

The esteemed author and medical doctor Norman Cousins wrote an article in Time magazine labeling Americans as a nation of hypochondriacs. I agree.

But don’t worry, there is another side to the story. We are not alone, destined to spend our lives at the mercy of the medical establishment and its limited knowledge. Medical practitioners continue to overlook the power of life. If you were to line up every type of doctor, from brain surgeons to those in alternative practices, not one of them would be able to heal the most minor abrasion on a corpse.

All the research and breakthroughs in the world are negligible compared to the power of life. Our first line of defense against disease and injury is the doctor inside each of us—our own mysterious life force. We can raise our consciousness and begin trusting our natural healing powers. We can have faith in the laws of nature as opposed to