I’ve been using this analogy in the office for a couple months now, and the first time I said it out loud, my team stopped me. “Wait, do you have that written down?” I didn’t. So now I do.
It comes from the lens we use with Dr. Amy Spoelstra’s FOCUS Method, and it applies just as well to pediatric cases as it does to adults dealing with pelvic instability and chronic physiological stress.
Here’s the concept.
Your nervous system runs on two tools. A Ferrari and a tractor.
The tractor plows the field. Low level, automatic, the stuff that’s supposed to run without anybody thinking about it.
The Ferrari is high level. Executive function, vision, adaptability. The processing your nervous system pulls out for the demanding stuff.
Through our evaluation, the thing we care about most is whether that nervous system is stuck in fight or flight. That’s what our subluxation assessment is actually checking for, whatever method you use to get there. Subluxation is what keeps that tractor starved of input in the first place. No clean signal, no automatic function, no gas in the tank.
Let’s run the case.
You’re checking a kid’s lower level function. Primitive reflexes, gross motor, fine motor. Eyes open, he gets through it. Maybe you catch a sign or two of sympathetic stress, but overall, he’s fine.
Now you have him close his eyes. Same tasks.
Everything falls apart.
Parents watch that happen and go, “wait, what just happened?” Because they just watched two different kids do the same test.
That kid is using his Ferrari to plow the field. His tractor is out of gas, starved by the same subluxation you just assessed for. So he’s running his highest level processing, vision, executive function, just to get through tasks that should never have needed it.
And by the time he actually needs that Ferrari, for school, for socialization, for the stuff it’s built for, it’s already destroyed. Spent all day plowing a field it was never built for.
Same story on the adult side. Pelvic instability, chronic physiological stress, same pattern. The Ferrari never gets a day off, so it’s never available when it’s actually needed.
Medicine doesn’t even look at the Ferrari. They blame the driver. That’s just how he’s wired, they say. So they lower the demands, modify the track, medicate the symptom, and the kid never even finds out he was supposed to be on that track in the first place.
Here’s what we know instead. The brain isn’t fully developed at birth. It develops based on the input it receives. Correct the subluxation, restore that input, and the tractor gets built right. It can finally plow the field on its own.
The Ferrari gets to stay on the track where it belongs.
Next time a case doesn’t make sense to you, stop asking what’s wrong with the Ferrari.
Ask what job it’s been doing instead.