Creating a Healing Mindset
Do you find yourself in a constant state of survival mode just trying to get through the day? Does it feel like no matter what you do or any new thing you try, you can’t seem to get ahead? Do you struggle with constant fatigue, burnout, or chronic symptoms you just can’t beat? Are you tired of being misunderstood by the medical community, your friends, family and community?
You are NOT alone. You are NOT lazy or crazy. You are NOT inadequate. You ARE enough. You ARE worthy of healing. You CAN heal. It is your divine right to heal. However, to even start the healing process, it takes developing a specific mindset to move forward. I will share with you some key things you can do to stop living in survival mode and start creating a better foundation to allow healing to take place.
Healing is Possible!
In 2015, I struggled with debilitating fatigue and chronic brain fog to the point where I couldn’t even function at work. I went searching for answers within the allopathic and alternative medical fields. While traditional medical doctors came up short with any diagnosis and actually told me it was “all in my head”, luckily I was fortunate to find some answers through functional medicine. I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, mold toxicity, and adrenal fatigue.
I spent the next two years working with medications, different diets, and treatment plans both traditional and holistic with minimal results only to find myself worse off. After a very scary cytokine storm in 2017, I developed mast cell activation and started having daily tremors, seizures, and full body collapses to the point where I could not use my legs for short periods of time. I went from doctor to doctor doing medical test after medical test with no answers. Everything came in clear. Finally, after months of searching and head scratching from doctors both traditional and alternative, I was diagnosed with neurological lyme disease. Again, I was relieved to have an answer. I was able to make little progress with the protocols, but not much. I realized quickly that I was on my own battling my illness in the Wild West. Then after a stroke-like episode in 2018 that sent me into the hospital and recovery for months after, I fell to my knees and prayed for an answer. I had tried everything, and believe me when I say that I had tried everything at that point. Deep down I knew that my body was capable of healing given the right environment and tools. I had truly believed in the quote by Hippocrates, “Let thy food be thy medicine.” So I took matters into my own hands and enrolled in a Nutrition Therapy Masters program to learn how to heal myself. Shortly after, Anthony William’s first book Medical Medium: Secrets Behind Chronic and Mystery Illness and How to Finally Heal fell into my lap and I devoured it in a day. Every cell in my body told me this was the path to healing I was looking for. I started implementing his protocols along with my nutritional therapy education, and emotional and spiritual healing techniques I had been learning, and slowly I started to see real progress.
One of the most important things I had to learn (the hard way of course) was that it does take a certain mindset to heal. This is a crucial foundational piece that most doctors and practitioners will not tell you. It sets the foundation for healing. Without it, I found myself in a constant loop of survival.
5 Steps for Creating the Mindset for Healing
The question you might be asking yourself is, how the hell can I heal when I have so many demands on me? The all consuming roles we play such as a mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, career woman, magician, all require more energy from us than we are able to give. As Anthony William mentions in his first book, no one carries the brunt of this increasingly fast paced world more than women. Women have incredible demands and expectations that push our bodies to the brink.
Luckily, there are some small steps we can start with that can create the foundation for healing and slowly move us out of survival mode wherever you are on your journey, or how much support you are getting at the moment.
1. Acceptance
It seems so simple, but can actually be quite difficult when put into practice. The truth is, so many of us never wanted a chronic condition or illness. So we fight it. We look for quick fixes, we push harder, we overcompensate for our shortcomings with our health, and all too often we go about our day pretending that we are “fine”. Most people buy into this idea because so many of us don’t look sick, which is exactly what we want them to believe because we think we have so much to lose if we are “found out”. This leads to incredible loneliness and isolation. I pretended to be fine for two years prior to accepting my chronic illness. I would go to concerts only to be carried out by friends. I would go on walks to prove to myself I could do it, only to have to call my parents to pick me up on the far side of the park because my legs collapsed. Now I am not suggesting that accepting your illness means that you should make it your identity, quite the opposite. Once you fully accept where you are with your “condition” (which is a term I prefer over “illness”), then you create open space in your mind to lend way to better problem solving and getting creative with your healing. This also calms the constant and corrosive adrenaline and cortisol surges you have trained your body to produce on a daily basis.
2. Practice Self Compassion
Self compassion is also a critical step we often overlook. Be honest with yourself, how many times do you beat yourself up each day for not doing enough or being enough? Bringing awareness to our inner dialogue can greatly shift how we look at ourselves and our healing progress. Michael Singer, author of the Untethered Soul, emphasizes that if we can observe our inner voice (essentially our ego) without attachment, we can start to view it as separate from the divine individual we are. We are then empowered to work with this voice to become a friend rather than foe. Healing unfortunately is not a linear journey. It is riddled with twists, turns, roadblocks, and backward steps. If we can learn to be more gentle and compassionate with ourselves, it can provide us the most foundational support we truly need, from within ourselves.
3. Focus on Small, Incremental Changes
Have you ever crossed paths with someone with habits or traits you admire? News flash! They didn’t get there overnight. Sometimes when we are desperate, we want to make all the changes all at once. However, this is not a sustainable way to make new habits last. It is also easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of new habits we need to create to make real change, which ends up leaving us in a state of inertia or worse disempowered and feeling inadequate. James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, explains that tiny behaviors repeated consistently over time lead to significant results. The key is not to aim for a massive overhaul in your diet or supplement regime for example, but focus on doing 1% better every day. Truth be told, it took me a full year to overhaul my diet, with many failures and re-starts along the way. Aim for miniscule changes, and do not let perfection get the better of you. If you fall off the wagon, show some self love, get back on and keep trying.
4. Create a Mindset of Hope
Let me explain this one, since it can trigger many, especially those who have tried everything and continue to come up short. I understand where you are. I have also felt hopeless in some stages throughout my journey of healing, even with the right tools. This is completely normal. However, we never want to stay stuck in hopelessness. Neuroscience today explains that our brains are wired by the way we think. Neural pathways are developed based on the thoughts we think. These pathways are set in stone until we create new thoughts, which if consistent, can lead to new neural pathways developed overtime. Joe Dispenza in his book Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One emphasizes that if we want to change, we have to think, feel, and act in new ways. We have to “be” different in terms of our responses to our experiences. We have to create a new state of mind and observe a new outcome with that new mind. If you can’t get beyond your stresses, your problems, and your pain, you can’t create a new future where those things don’t exist.
5. Enlist the Right Support
No “successful” person ever got to where they are on their own. From the beginning of time, we have always been social creatures who thrive in communities and rely on each other for support. Unfortunately, in the world today, we are conditioned to believe we need to operate independent of others and that illness equals weakness. In our search for answers for better health, we quickly figure out that the systems created to support us in health in fact do not support us at all. This leaves us with the incredibly fearful feeling we are on our own to figure it out. Where the medical system doesn’t provide, there are plenty of resources that do. Finding an online or local support group, a licensed or certified practitioner to help guide you through your healing journey, health-minded co-ops. The lists are endless. If you are not getting support from your friends or family, it is time to search elsewhere. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have them in your life, but you need to focus on shifting your time and energy with people who are going to support you on your healing journey. Without the right support, we can only go so far. Remember, this is YOUR life. No one else gets to decide how you spend your time and what you focus on. If healing is your goal, which for most of us it is, then make yourself a priority. As Anthony William says, “Always come back to this truth: You deserve a good life. A good life exists for you. And the foundation of a good life is good health. You deserve to heal, to tap into your body’s restorative mechanisms. You deserve to be happy and well.”
