I quit "healing" my body.

fuck it, let's get margaritas.

This is the second time I’ve quit the naturopath. After following an intense diet protocol for all of July — no oil, limited fat, primarily plant-based, intermittent fasting — I showed up to our last session irritable and cranky. The diet was supposed to be helping with my insomnia, and yet, I had barely slept for 3 weeks. I was tired of eating salads. I was sick of white-knuckling myself through the 16:8 intermittent fasting window, counting the minutes until 10am before breakfast, and then attempting to stuff myself before 7pm before I inevitably got hungry before bed.

If this is what “cleansing” is, fuck, this sucks. I was sleep-deprived, ravenous as hell, with acne resurfacing along my jawline and upper cheeks, the most I’ve had in years.

I tried this diet earlier this year and “failed” miserably, which is why I went so hard on my second attempt. I wanted to say I gave it an honest shot (and I did, even at my own detriment). I always believed in the premise of holistic healing. And yet, it has never worked for me.

Maybe because I only followed the protocol 85% it didn’t work? Maybe these are detox symptoms, and I just have to stick with it longer… Maybe I need to get more colonics, or start acupuncture again, or only drink green juice, or fix my gut microbiome, or have a stricter bedtime routine, or stay away from EMFs, or do more restorative yoga, or find the right homeopathic remedy, or strictly drink Mountain Valley Spring Water, for my body to actually heal? Maybe if I put my whole life on hold I will finally feel better. Maybe sleep will come to me then?

In my last session with the naturopath, he at least validated how bad I was feeling as I was practically starving myself. He suggested I focus on including more animal products into my diet again (thank god) to nourish my body back up. We shortened the intermittent fasting window by two hours. The idea was that if we work on building a strong “clean” physical base, we would be able to go deeper into fasting and thus “healing.”

We talked a lot about purpose during our sessions. About what I desire in life, about what my direction should be next after quitting my cafe job several months ago, about my dreams for the future. To be honest, I cried in most sessions. The last one was no different.

He suggested I should start seeing a therapist. He believed that my health symptoms were deeply intertwined with my emotions (which I agree). This wasn’t the first time this has been suggested to me. And I guess it makes sense… he believed there was no way I was going to overcome my “block” of perfectionism without working with a good therapist. I nodded in agreement as he shared this perspective with me.

But I left his office feeling conflicted.

On one hand, I wanted to believe if I dived deeper into my trauma (lower case t), I would finally be able to heal. I would finally get over my insecurities and actually become confident, and thus my health symptoms would reside.

On the other hand, I was pissed off. Why should I have to do so much work on myself to heal? Why do I have to try so hard to “get to the root” of my emotional blocks when they never seem to end?

I have already done years and years of journaling around my “childhood wounds,” digging into countless memories in attempts to “reprogram” my conditioning. I have done the shadow work, the reparenting, the somatic processing, and yet — my “blocks” were still there.

A few days later, I decided I was done.

I quit the naturopath.

And I decided I was going to quit healing my body.

***

The first time I worked with a naturopath was in 2020. I had just come off birth control and was dealing with an irregular menstrual cycle, plus had raging cystic acne that made it hard to be seen in public.

I worked with her for a year and a half, spending thousands of dollars on supplements and her strange herbal concoctions, in order to “cleanse my liver” and balance my hormones.

Granted, within a few months of working with her my period finally regulated.

But the acne… the acne never cleared up.

right before I started accutane in 2022.

(it’s ironic because the only reason I ever went on birth control was for my acne, which I intuitively knew would come back as soon as I stopped.)

So after a year and a half of trying to convince myself my skin was very sloowllllyyyyyy getting better, I had to be real with myself: the natural route wasn’t working. And I wanted clear skin by 25 goddamit, even if it meant using “toxic” allopathic medicine.

So I took accutane. And hallelujah, it worked. My skin was poreless and spotless for the first time in years.

When I came to the states, I started to get really bad health anxiety. My dad always warned me about the medical system in America, fear-mongering that I would “die in the streets” if I didn’t have health insurance (I didn’t have any). I started reading into every little symptom that was showing itself. I also started trawling the accutane reddit thread (don’t do that) and panicking because I had drunk alcohol whilst on accutane, believing I had irrevocably fucked my body and liver.

The more I focused on my symptoms — the occasional day of constipation, the odd night of insomnia, the strange hairs on my chest, my period being slightly more irregular — the bigger these “problems” got. I started to pour a lot of emotion, energy, and research into my symptoms. I started to become obsessed with healing my body and researching various chronic illnesses. I began to cry every time I couldn’t sleep at night, which was becoming so frequent it was every other day. I was angry and frustrated that my body was “failing” me. I was doing all the “right things” in order to prioritize sleep, and yet it felt further away than ever, perpetually out of reach.

And look, it’s not that my symptoms weren’t (and aren’t) real… this is not a linear story where I can tell you everything is perfect now and none of these things ever bother me.

But the more I’ve tried to “heal” my health, the worse it’s gotten.

The more I focused on my health, the more health symptoms there were to focus on.

The more I keep healing, the more I have to heal.

And honestly, I’m bored. I don’t want to do it anymore.

I don’t want to spend my life “healing.”

I don’t want to force myself to go on another diet I hate.

I don’t want to keep putting my desires on hold, waiting for the day I will eventually feel like I’m “done healing.”

So I give up.

I’m going to live my life regardless if I sleep or not, regardless of my irregular menstrual cycle and “imbalanced hormones.”

I’m going to eat whatever I want, whenever I want. I’m going to drink caffeine in the mornings because I love it. I’m going to start running again because I miss it. I’m going to go to bed whenever I feel like it and watch reality TV after 9pm.

I’m going to allow the body to do its thing. I am going to trust it knows what it’s doing, and that maybe I don’t have to do anything except get out of the fucking way.

Have you noticed that the people who worry most about their health have health issues? Have you noticed how some people don’t put much energy into their health at all, eating whatever they want and don’t feel guilty about it, and they are ridiculously healthy?

What if being “healed” is a choice? What if you could decide right now to identify as being healthy?

I believe the body is always trying to find homeostasis. The body knows intuitively how to sleep, when it’s hungry, how to digest food. It knows how to do almost every biological process automatically on its own, without our mental interference.

Whilst for some people, working with functional health doctors, naturopaths, and wellness practitioners is extremely supportive — and works for them — I don’t think this is the route for me.

I had gotten it all twisted. I’ve been waiting to feel “good” in order to live my life. But actually, living my life is what’s going to allow me to feel good (and has proven to work over the last month — I’ve been sleeping more consistently, my acne is clearing up despite eating dairy and gluten again, I’ve have way more energy and am feeling better emotionally, all signs of “healing” imo).

So fuck it, give me a margarita. Let’s go out into the world and have fun again.

***

In this season of life, I’m obsessed with the law of attraction and energetics. It’s the new “system” I am experimenting with and testing for results.

And honestly, the biggest example I can see of how the law of attraction works — i.e, what we focus on, we create more of — is my insomnia.

I totally attracted insomnia into my reality.

I know that’s a controversial statement to make, but it feels almost comical how accurate it is.

The more I focused on not sleeping, the less I began to sleep. The more I began to research about potential “solutions” to my sleep, the harder I tried to implement strategies to sleep, the more important it was for me to sleep, the less I slept over all. I created momentum through emotion, thought, and energy directed into my lack of sleep. It began to consume my thoughts constantly every day, I talked about it with anybody who would listen, and thus it became a mirror reflected in my real world.

This realization has got me excited. Because I know if I can attract and manifest a “negative” version of reality by pouring my attention, thoughts, and energy into it — I can do the same in the opposite direction.

If I can create THAT much momentum around a “problem” in my life, imagine if I started doing the same around something that’s going “right.”

Imagine if I focused the same amount of energy into creating what I actually want in life versus what I don’t want. Imagine the positive momentum that could build.

So I AM CHOOSING TO BE HEALED BABY ⚡️ I am CHOOSING to live my life exactly how I want to, regardless of external conditions and circumstances.

Like who cares if I don’t sleep? Who gives a fuck about having acne? Life goes on, you have to keep moving with it…

“Healing” was draining all my energy instead of replenishing it back. It became my entire lifestyle, and honestly, it wasn’t yielding results. I’m not saying this is the right path for everyone, that you should forego medical advice from doctors especially if you have serious health diagnoses —

but for those who have been endlessly “healing” for years on end with no results, who are dealing with *minor* symptoms which truthfully are not a big deal, for those who have tried so hard to be natural, holistic, and “healthy” and yet feel as lethargic as ever —

Maybe it’s time you quit your “healing journey.”

Maybe it’s time to start living your life instead.

I am starting to believe that happiness is the best medicine for health. Not your diet. Not your exercise regime. Not your wellness hacks and cleansing protocols. The only strategy I want to follow now when it comes to healing my body is having fun and following what feels good. Thankfully, this is the kind of strategy I can get around and stick to. It’s sounds a lot easier to me.

✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹 ⋆。°✩