The Healing Power of Coven Chiropractic
When Coco Rowlette was in school in Michigan, studying gender studies and poetry, she came down with a terrible sickness that traditional Western medicine wasn't healing. Coughing, sleepless nights, and dried-out lungs resulted in her ribs popping out of place. After several months of illness, she was at the end of her rope and finally visited a chiropractor. In this visit, she found more than relief from her pain: she found her future calling. What she calls “poetry of the body,” chiropractic is a practice of giving a patient their power back — a practice Rowlette loves deeply.
Her love for chiropractic moved her to open Coven Chiropractic, her own practice at the Liminal Space Collective in Little Five Points. Rowlette spoke to Georgia Voice about Coven, the art of chiropractic, and its all-encompassing impact.
Quotes have been edited for clarity. Read the full interview online at thegavoice.com.
What exactly is chiropractic? We're seeking to align the spinal column and the extremities so that the nerves that come out of those locations can communicate properly throughout the body. The nervous system is in charge of every physical process in the entire body, so we want to make sure that's working uninhibited.
We're looking for a subluxation, something that's moved slightly out of place in the body. So, we're using the bones as levers to relieve the joints that are surrounding that region to reduce pain and increase function. The chiropractic philosophy is that each of our own bodies is healing itself and that the chiropractor is just aiming to remove the interferences of the nervous system so that the body can do what it wants to naturally.
What services do you offer at Coven — or, alternatively, what does the process of working with a client look like? The first visit is an hour and a half long. We take a half hour to go through a health history discussion. This is the time to tell me if you think there's an energetic reason, a spiritual reason, or an astrological reason why you're in pain — this is a safe place to tell me that. Then we're going to do neurological and orthopedic exams to make sure that chiropractic is safe for you at the time to do and get a better idea of what your official diagnosis would be. As long as I do find it safe, I include treatment in that first appointment. My patients tend to be hardworking individuals who perhaps don't have all the time and money in the world to keep coming back to me three times a week, so I want to provide as much treatment as I can immediately.
I do cupping as well. I love cupping because I feel it helps hold your adjustment longer. So it's still about the chiropractic adjustment, but we're adjusting all that soft tissue attached to the joints and encouraging the body to allow change to occur.
Beyond the relief of not being in physical pain anymore, do you see emotional release from patients who may have been holding emotional trauma and pain in their bodies? Oh, absolutely. I take a lot of time when I first start to just sort of move the body around. So many of us are literally holding the world together with our clenched jaws or shoulders up, and I can just feel there's like no segmental motion throughout the body. It's like almost working in one iron unit. You feel that body turn into mush by the end of it, feel them or hear them take that deep breath, deep sighs of relief, the [emotional] weight come out of their eyes. There are definitely deep emotional releases. I've had patients jump off the table immediately to write things down because they'll have a burst of inspiration.
Chiropractic also is important in addressing posture and the way we hold ourselves in space. Your posture reflects how you feel in your mind, how you feel in your emotions that day, and vice versa. I love giving people extra confidence in that way. Especially when it comes to marginalized communities — coming back to that pride in your chest after
a top surgery, for instance, when all your body wants to do is be in the fetal position.
What can chiropractic offer somebody in the new year who wants to embrace a healthier lifestyle? I think it's really important self-care to say, “I deserve not to live in this chronic state that I'm in,” or, “I deserve to do more than just survive; I want to thrive in my body and feel good and happy and grow constantly.”
There's this thought about chiropractic that what you go once you're going to have to go the rest of your life. And in a way, that's true. It's like first going to a dentist after living with cavities for years and you're like, yeah, now that I know what not having rotting teeth feels like, I will have to go to the dentist for the rest of my life. You know how it feels to have enough space in your body and length and confidence and strength and alignment. It just reflects in every part of your life.