When dealing with mysterious health issues, it can get real, real quick. Which is why I want to connect with you in this article on what to expect as you move through your health journey.
In the first months or even years of dealing with mysterious issues, it’s common to have certain assumptions about what your journey and healing will look like. But it’s often not until years 3, 5 or more of a health journey to accept that finding answers and healing works quite differently from what you previously assumed, to then finally realize expectations. So, instead of having these realizations years down the road, let’s chat through healing expectations now. Setting the stage can help you mentally prepare which will set you up for success, as it will reduce anxiety and ultimately, reduce the time in you finding answers and healing.
4 Things to Expect on Your Healthcare Journey:
Real Talk #1) Healing takes time
No matter which way you cut it, healing takes time. In that first year of dealing with health issues, it’s common for people to assume that healing their chronic issues is like mending a broken leg. They think: Okay I will go to the doctor, get a caste, walk on crutches for 6 months, start to put weight on my foot, get the caste off, and then walk normally like I always did. This is the healthcare picture that is often painted for us but it’s not the reality when dealing with mysterious or chronic health issues. And while the goal of Remedy Roadmap is to drastically decrease the time and effort it takes to find answers and heal, it’s simply a reality that healing takes time. And that’s because it takes a lot of effort and lifestyle changes, it takes time to find the right doctor or practitioner, it takes time to put the puzzle pieces together, it takes time to find the root cause of your issue and to understand why this is happening, it takes time to understand which healing modalities resonate with you and your body, it takes time to detox, and it takes time to heal the nervous system that needs to be healed in order for you to heal.
It may take you years to get to a place that you’re comfortable with. It could take you one year or multiple – it’s hard to know as everyone’s healing journey varies quite significantly, even if you have the same diagnosis! So, start wrapping your head around the time that you may be here. But with that, I need you to know that you WILL BE OKAY and you will get better. I’ve seen it time and time again and without a doubt, your bizarre and mysterious issue will get better. I know it!
Notes:
- Be wary of programs or activities that claim to heal you in days or even months. While I do believe in many of these alternative activities that have potential for life-altering healing, be wary of them taking priority in your healing journey because I believe “overnight” healing is the exception rather than the rule. I have engaged in these activities myself so if you’re being called to one of these alternative programs, I believe it can be worth trying if you have the budget and time. But the vast majority of people who experience ongoing health issues cannot heal in days or even months, including myself. So while I encourage you to partake in whatever you’re being called to, make sure to set the expectation that it will be a piece of your healing journey but unlikely to be the one thing that heals you.
Real Talk #2) Accept that your life will need to look different for a while
When dealing with ongoing health issues, it’s important to slow down and take time for yourself so that you can properly heal. When trying to keep up with everything in your life—whether that be family priorities, social engagements, volunteer efforts, or work priorities—it can wear you down. It can wear you down to the point where you have nothing left to give and your healing stops progressing. To heal, you have to stop doing all the things. You need to give yourself permission to show up differently in your life. This is key! You need more time for yourself to rest, make home-cooked meals, read a book in the sun, walk in nature, sleep in, meditate, move your body, and so much more.
Whatever it is that you need to heal, it can’t happen if you’re overfilling yourself with priorities. For me, it was helpful to prioritize the most important areas where I wanted to show up in my life, and then to temporarily let the other areas go. This took me way too long to realize and I wish I understood it much quicker! Because I was exhausted, way too exhausted. And that exhaustion was only making my issues worse. So for me, I needed to let go of extensive social engagements as those were soaking up much-needed rest time of mine. I love my friends and live music and having late nights, but I’m an introvert and constant exposure to people and staying up late needed to be put on pause. My work needed to stay a priority as I needed an income, and I wanted to put my husband and cooking healthy meals as a priority. So, I shifted some things. And once I committed to the shift, I felt so much calmer and at ease and could focus on me.
It’s important to wrap your head around this – to heal, you must give yourself permission to show up differently in your life. It is okay if you’re now not the life of the party, or the one taking care of everyone, or the one to go the extra mile at work, or to work out 7 days a week. It is okay. And not only is it okay, it’s necessary!
Real Talk #3) Finding answers and healing is costly
One harsh reality is that to find answers and healing to your mysterious issues, it’s going to cost money. And oftentimes, a lot of money. The reason for this is two-fold:
#1) When we’re sick, it’s common to throw money at doctors or detox protocols or alternative healing modalities, hoping one of them is the answer. But uh oh, none of them are. It’s common to approach this process in a fragmented way, throwing spaghetti money at the wall wherever we can because we’re desperate. This path that we’re forced to take is a certified sh*t show. There’s never been someone to help streamline this process (cue Remedy Roadmap) so not only does the time involved continue to grow, but so does the hole in our wallet. Spending money that doesn’t provide answers or healing is not where we want to be! And it is why Remedy Roadmap was created – to put an end to this cycle. But it is a reality that even when we are spending quality money, money that’s worth it, it’s still going to be expensive. This leads me to the second reason why finding answers and healing costs money.
#2) No matter which way you cut it, finding answers and healing is expensive. This is because:
- Oftentimes, the best practitioners or doctors don’t accept insurance. Insurance is surprisingly inhibiting for practitioners so many of the best choose to opt-out so they can spend more time and resources on your complicated case. There are of course wonderful doctors who do accept insurance but it’s becoming more common to ditch it all-together. Thus, an unfortunate reality is that for those who finally find their answers and healing, there’s a good chance it’s with a practitioner who uses an expensive cash-based model.
- Finding answers can be expensive. There is a huge difference between conventional labwork that’s covered by your insurance and ordered within your primary care doctor’s office, versus functional labwork. Functional labwork significantly covers more variables and is a wonderful tool to help you find answers. But the reality is that it’s not covered by insurance and therefore, it can be pricey. It’s common to spend $1,000 upfront on labwork alone…yikes. But while this is expensive, it’s often worth it because this is how you find answers! To learn more about labwork, make sure to check out the eBook, Labwork that Works for You.
- Healing can be expensive. Because no matter which healing modality you engage with, it will cost money. Whether that be supplements, acupuncture, colon hydrotherapy, organic food, etc…they will add up! But oftentimes, these modalities have potential for big impacts in our healing so they’re worth it. Plus many practitioners are now offering sliding fee scales or new organizations are popping up to provide access to these modalities at more affordable rates, like this one.
Real Talk #4) Healing is not linear
Like in the broken leg example given above, it’s common for us to expect healing to be a linear process: I go to the doctor, get a caste, walk again, and live life normally like I did before. But healing mysterious or chronic conditions is anything but that. Because even when we actually are healing, when we’re in the care of the best doctor or practitioner who is contributing to our healing, we will still have bad days, weeks, or months. And in these moments where it feels like we’re plunging in our healing progression, it’s very easy to assume that healing is not happening. But when you’re actively engaging in healthy and healing activities here’s some good news – healing is happening! If healing were a graph, it would be a scatter plot. Good day here, bad day over there, weeks of good days here, weeks of bad days over there – but overall, the healing is progressing. So take this to heart: even on your bad days, your healing graph is still trending upward. It’s important to internalize this so that when you’re having a bad day, you can put your best mental game forward and know that healing is occurring. Because healing is a mental game! And if you get down in the dumps for having a bad day where symptoms flare, the fear and anxiety that creeps in can have monumental impacts on you. Fear can quite literally stop you from healing as it causes immune system-wide shutdowns. So feel the fear but then try to let it go, know deep down that healing is happening, and that you are safe. Shifting your mindset here to calm the nervous system can have long-lasting impacts on you and your healing!
To dive into everything we spoke about in this blog and more, make sure to check out the Remedy Roadmap course, Mapping it out: How to navigate mysterious health issues and find a practitioner who gets it.