The Rooted DC- Reclaim Your Legitimacy

Dr. Alexandra Swenson-Ridley
  • 5.0 (24)
  • Alternative Health
  • Weekly Series

You became a chiropractor because you believed in something. But somewhere between the skeptics, the insurance battles, and the business advice that never quite fit — you started to lose connection to the dream that brought you here. The Rooted DC is a podcast for chiropractors who are done trying to fit inside a system that was never designed for them. Hosted by Dr. Alex Swenson — fellow DC, PhD researcher in organizational development and change, and someone who built a seven-figure practice, lost everything, and rebuilt it with an entirely new foundation — this is where we go beneath the surface and reclaim what was always ours: our identity, our worth, and our legitimacy as a profession. Ready to go deeper? Find the community at The Practice Beneath The Practice on Substack.

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  1. Episode 1

    S3E1 Where Does Your Worth Come From? Reclaiming Chiropractic Identity

    There's a chiropractor in a parking lot hut in Maui who told a second-year chiropractic student to get out. She wrote him off at the time. Twenty years later, she understands exactly what he meant. This is the first episode of a new season — and a new focus. Dr. Alex is done talking around the elephant: chiropractors are carrying a legitimacy wound that has shaped how we build our practices, set our fees, design our intake processes, and decide what we're worth. And most of us don't even realize we're doing it. What you'll hear in this episode: - Why a practice that looks like success from the outside can still feel like something vital is disappearing — and what that's actually telling you - How to tell the difference between a clinical decision made from values versus one made from fear of not being taken seriously - The real cost of defining chiropractic worth through the lens of Western medicine's acceptance - What your new patient process reveals about where your decisions are actually coming from - Why asking your patients what they need might be the most radical act of leadership you can practice right now - What it looks like to co-create a practice model that is genuinely congruent — not borrowed from someone else's success story Connect on Substack Email Dr. Alex: dralex@rootedpractice.co

    26 min

  2. Episode 2

    S3E2 What Your Pricing Model Reveals About Your Worth as a Chiropractor

    How you price your practice is not a business decision. It's a worth decision. Most chiropractors don't see it that way — and that's exactly the problem. We dress up our scarcity in generosity. We call it patient-centered. We call it accessible. But underneath the frustrations with insurance, fears around charging cash, big care plans or heavily discounted rates is programming our whole profession struggles with: I don't fully trust that what I offer is enough. This week Dr. Alex shares what happened when she asked her patients a simple question — what could make this better? — and what the answer revealed about the worth work she still had to do. What you'll explore in this episode: Recognize when your pricing structure is driven by worth wounds rather than valuesUnderstand what "giving it all away" or staying trapped in the insurance racket actually signals about your relationship with your own legitimacySee how the insurance system trains chiropractors to outsource their sense of worth — and what it costsHear how one small feedback conversation shifted an entire pricing model without drama or discountingUnderstand why spiritual grounding isn't optional if you want to set your fees with convictionBegin to notice the difference between serving from fullness and serving from need Resources + Community: practicebeneaththepractice.substack.com Find Dr. Alex on Substack at The Practice Beneath The Practice for deeper conversation between episodes We'd love to hear what comes up for you on this episode: dralex@rootedpractice.co CHAPTER SUMMARYThe System We Keep Fighting to Be Part Of [00:45] Drawing from a Kabbalah training where two healthcare providers in completely different worlds both said the same thing — the system's broken, so I've been doing my own thing — Dr. Alex names the undertone that runs beneath chiropractic's worth wound: why are we still trying to belong to something that we were never designed to fit into? The Pediatrician With Three Practices [04:19] A real example of what happens when a servant heart runs the business instead of a grounded one. A pediatrician with a traditional clinic, a mental health program, and a mobile practice — the one he was most passionate about getting the least of him. The dilution that comes from trying to fill every need is not generosity. It's a worth problem wearing a mission statement. The Dark Side of the Servant Leader Heart [06:07] Most chiropractors were taught to give, serve, and pour out. The problem is almost none of us were taught to fill back up first. Dr. Alex names the shadow side of servant leadership — when giving comes from emptiness rather than fullness — and connects it directly to how that dynamic shows up in the structure of our practices. The Unlimited Trap [09:57] The teaching case at the center of this episode. Dr. Alex walked her subscription patients through a simple feedback question — what could make this better? — and what she heard back cracked something open. Nobody needed the unlimited visits she thought made a subscription "appealing". Nobody was using them. The option was never for them. It was a mirror to her own worth conversation. What You Give Away When You Take Insurance [12:41] A frank account of what it actually cost to be inside the insurance system — not just financially, but in terms of power, integrity, and identity. When a company can reach back one to three years and reclaim money already spent, you don't have a billing arrangement. You have a relationship built on someone else's terms. The Even Exchange [15:38] What it looks like when pricing comes from worth rather than fear. Not a dramatic overhaul — small, clear corrections from a steadier place. And the deeper truth underneath all of it: your fees can only be held with conviction if your sense of worth is rooted in something that can't be taken away. Worth Has to Come From Somewhere [16:25] The close. A real conversation about why the external world — the economy, the patients, the profession — will never be a stable source of worth. And why the spiritual dimension of this work isn't a luxury add-on, but the foundation everything else is built on.

    20 min

  3. Season 3 Trailer

    Welcome to The Rooted DC-Reclaim Your Legitimacy

    You passed the boards. You opened the practice. You adopted the “fake it till you make it” approach to practice everyone told you to do in school. You did everything right. And still — there’s this voice that follows you everywhere. It says you’re not quite legitimate. You have to prove something. That you have to work twice as hard to be taken half as seriously. That you’re a third rate doctor who will never have a seat at the table. And the reality is you’re slowly losing your soul to a profession you love but feel let down by. That voice is a wound the entire profession holds — and very few talk about. I’m Dr. Alex. I’m a chiropractor, a PhD researcher in organizational development and change, and a practice owner who built a seven-figure practice, lost it all, and am now on a journey of rebuilding it with an entirely new foundation. The Rooted DC is where we go beneath the surface of chiropractic practice — into the identity questions, the legitimacy wounds, the conflicting values, the gap between who you were trained to be and who you actually are as a practitioner and a person. This isn’t a clinical skills podcast. It isn’t a business tips show. It’s about you. The DC who chose this profession on purpose and is looking to reconnect to why that choice still matters. This is the show where we keep it short, but go deep in talking about the things our profession tends to ignore or sweeps under the rug. Join me on: The Rooted DC: Reclaim Your Legitimacy.

    2 min
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About

You became a chiropractor because you believed in something. But somewhere between the skeptics, the insurance battles, and the business advice that never quite fit — you started to lose connection to the dream that brought you here. The Rooted DC is a podcast for chiropractors who are done trying to fit inside a system that was never designed for them. Hosted by Dr. Alex Swenson — fellow DC, PhD researcher in organizational development and change, and someone who built a seven-figure practice, lost everything, and rebuilt it with an entirely new foundation — this is where we go beneath the surface and reclaim what was always ours: our identity, our worth, and our legitimacy as a profession. Ready to go deeper? Find the community at The Practice Beneath The Practice on Substack.

Information

  • Creator
    Dr. Alexandra Swenson-Ridley
  • Episodes
    238
  • Seasons
    3
  • Rating
    Clean