The Body Knows How to Heal (when it feels secure)
After almost 20 years of trying to fix my hundreds of chronic illness symptoms, the answer was astoundingly simple. My system had been stuck in survival mode.
I spent years chasing the answers to my chronic illness, desperately trying to figure out what was wrong with my body and how to fix it. I kept assuming that the answer was complicated and that it would come from outside of me. For about 18 years, my external focus was keeping me from the simple truth:
When the body feels secure, it can do all the maintenance and repair that it already knows how to do.
My body hadn’t forgotten how to heal. It was just stuck in a state of survival and protection, so those maintenance and healing processes (like sleeping and resolving infection) were simply in “off” mode.
As I focused more and more on re-learning how to feel mentally, physically and emotionally secure, every single one of those functions started to come back online.
Thank Mother Nature that this is true! And thanks to my functional medicine doctor for pointing me in the right direction!! As I learned more about the limbic system and nervous system rehabilitation, all those years of suffering started to make sense.
My journey back to safety
Through self-guided programs, I started learning how to use top-down (mind based) and bottom up (body based) exercises to escort my body (and my brain) into safety. Within the first week of practicing these tools, I saw unbelievable results. For the first time in a decade and a half, I stopped needing naps. (I had been napping at least twice every day, because I simply could not keep my eyes open.) Now I know that my system had been in dorsal vagal shutdown mode, which is a common survival tactic for animals that have been in survival mode for too long.
Within months of doing these daily practices, I noticed improvements in many more symptoms. But most importantly, my entire orientation to the world started to soften and feel more connected. With this systemic approach (tending to the central nervous system instead of individual conditions), every single one of of those downstream symptoms has a chance to correct itself, without a lot of intervention or striving.
No, my healing didn’t arrive all at once. It unfolded — gradually and organically, as all my systems (sleep, digestive, detox, etc.) got the message that I was no longer in survival mode.
If you’ve been confused, exhausted, and overwhelmed by chronic illness, just know that there is a way to tend to yourself that is rooted in science and simplicity.
Come learn about my favorite approach to nervous system healing inside the Primal Trust Academy & Community, where I’m now a teacher and mentor. We teach practical mind-body tools to upgrade the nervous system — supporting physical health, emotional resilience, and mental clarity — one small, integrated step at a time.
This is a space for people who are done trying to force their healing and are ready to let it unfold. 🌬 I’d love for you to join us!
