Tag: #healingisnotlinear

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When Trying to be Healthy Feels Like a Full-Time Job

The Pressure to Always Be On

There’s this pressure, spoken or not, to always be doing the most when it comes to your health. Show up to the gym, eat clean, get your steps in, drink the water, take the supplements, regulate your blood sugar, balance your hormones, sleep well, repeat. And when you’re doing it all for weeks or months, it starts to feel like you should be used to it by now. That it should come naturally. That if you’re tired, it must be something you’re doing wrong.

But here’s the truth: sometimes, trying to do everything right is just plain exhausting.

Especially when your body is already working against you.

When the Baseline Is Already Hard

Living with PCOS means that no matter how well I eat or how consistently I move, my body still throws curveballs. Chronic fatigue makes even simple tasks feel like they’re being done underwater some days. And I know I’m not the only one. So many people are dealing with invisible conditions. Autoimmune disorders. Mental health struggles. Endocrine issues. Chronic pain. It’s not just about doing the work. It’s about doing the work while your body resists every step.

You’re not lazy. You’re not broken. You’re not doing it wrong. You’re just carrying more than most people see.

The Perfection Trap

There’s a lie that creeps in when you’re trying to get healthy, that if you just stay consistent, you’ll feel better and better and better. And maybe that’s true for some people. But for those of us with long-term health struggles, it’s rarely that linear.

Sometimes, the most consistent thing you can do is rest.

And I don’t mean that in a cute, wellness-influencer kind of way. I mean that when your body is shot and your brain is foggy and everything hurts, it’s okay to take the day off. It’s okay to nap instead of lift. It’s okay to eat the thing. It’s okay to just exist.

You are not required to earn your rest.

Grace Over Guilt

One of the hardest parts of living with chronic health issues is the guilt that sneaks in. You know what to do. You’ve done it before. And yet today, you can’t. So you beat yourself up. You feel like a failure.

Stop.

Give yourself some grace. Real, honest grace. Not the kind where you “rest” and then punish yourself with two extra workouts later. Not the kind where you eat a snack and then spend hours trying to undo it.

The kind of grace that says, “I trust myself enough to know that taking care of me looks different every day.”

The Watchful Eyes (and the Hypocrisy)

There’s another layer to all this that no one really prepares you for. The spectators. Once people know you’re working on your health, it’s like they’re waiting for you to slip up. You mention you’re doing keto, and suddenly everyone’s a nutritionist. You eat one non-keto thing and it’s, “I thought you weren’t eating that anymore?”

Meanwhile, these same people are drinking soda for breakfast and haven’t had a vegetable in three days. But sure, let’s judge the girl with PCOS for eating a granola bar.

Here’s what I’ve learned. Most of the people who point fingers aren’t actually doing the work themselves. They just feel more comfortable when you’re struggling because it lets them off the hook.

Let them talk. Let them side-eye. Let them whisper. You don’t owe anyone perfection.

You’re allowed to change your mind, shift your plan, take breaks, and figure it out as you go. You are allowed to do what works for you. Because in the end, their opinions won’t get you through the hard days. You will.

It’s Not a Linear Path

Some days will be full of momentum and motivation. You’ll hit your macros, lift heavy, and feel like you’re making progress. And then there will be days where just getting out of bed takes everything you’ve got. That’s not failure. That’s life with a body that doesn’t always cooperate.

Health isn’t a straight line. It’s not a before and after photo. It’s a thousand tiny choices made over time, layered with rest, setbacks, and reminders that your worth has never been tied to your productivity.

So if today is one of the hard ones, you’re allowed to rest. You’re allowed to feel tired. You’re allowed to not be okay.

And you’re still on the path.

xoxo
-S

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Gratitude and the Ghosts I Carry

I’m going through something right now.

It’s not the kind of something you can tie up in a punchline or smooth over with a filtered selfie and a good caption. It’s the kind of something that sits in your throat, too heavy to swallow, too stubborn to spit out. The kind that makes you want to cancel everything and also say yes to anything that might distract you from it. I filmed a video already; I talk more about it there. But I haven’t been ready to let it out in writing until now. Maybe not even now. Maybe this is just the pressure valve hissing open because I’ve been holding it in too long.

This morning I saw an image, just a throwaway post on someone’s story. One of those things you scroll past a hundred times a day. But it stopped me cold:

“No amount of regret changes the past. No amount of anxiety changes the future. But any amount of gratitude changes the present.”

I don’t believe in signs most days. I believe in algorithms, and caffeine dependency, and making the best of what’s rotting in the fridge. But this hit like a reminder I didn’t know I’d asked for. Like someone whispering through the noise, pay attention.

Because regret and anxiety are the monsters I know best. Regret follows me like a shadow. It creeps in after the conversation ends. After the silence stretches too long. After the decision is made. It sounds like, You should have known better. You should have done more. You should have seen this coming. It’s not just about the big moments either. It’s about all the tiny ones. The split seconds where I didn’t speak up. The days I didn’t take care of myself. The years I spent twisting myself into shapes to be more palatable, less much.

Anxiety, on the other hand, is loud. It doesn’t creep. It crashes. It’s that buzz under my skin, that hum in my brain that never quite lets me rest. It’s the panic of not knowing what comes next, and the certainty that it won’t be good. It makes me flinch at the future like it’s a fist about to swing. It whispers about failure and financial ruin and being forgotten. It tells me I’m running out of time. That I’ve already wasted too much.

So between those two, regret dragging behind me and anxiety pulling ahead, I rarely feel like I’m anywhere solid. Just suspended between what I can’t fix and what I can’t control.

And then there’s that last line:
“Any amount of gratitude changes the present.”
And I want to roll my eyes at it. I want to dismiss it like I do most platitudes. But I can’t. Because there’s something true in it, and truth doesn’t need to shout to be real.

Gratitude is quiet. It doesn’t erase anything. It doesn’t overwrite the damage or scrub out the scars. But it does anchor me, even if only for a second. It pulls me out of the loop. It gives me something to touch.
Right now. Not someday. Not what was. But this.

And the truth is, I haven’t been doing a good job of being here lately. I’ve been somewhere else entirely. I’ve been in the hospital room that still haunts me. I’ve been on the couch where I numbed out for months. I’ve been in the mirror, picking myself apart. I’ve been in the future, catastrophizing every possible path, convinced none of them end well.

But gratitude says, stop. Just for a moment.

Look around.
There’s a dog sleeping with her paw over her nose.
There’s hot coffee cooling too fast but still comforting.
There’s your body, still trying, still waking up every morning, even after you’ve cursed it and failed it and apologized to it and cursed it again.
There’s the ridiculous fact that in the middle of everything crumbling, someone still said “I love you” and meant it.
There’s breath. There’s sweat. There’s music.
There’s you. Still here.

And that doesn’t fix it. It doesn’t make the grief go away. It doesn’t make the money show up or the fear disappear or the trauma untangle itself. But it’s something. It’s a rope. And right now, that might be enough.

I don’t have a clean ending for this post. No tidy resolution. No three-step plan.
I’m still deep in it. Still clawing my way toward whatever the next version of me looks like.

But I’m grateful you’re here, reading this.
I’m grateful I have words, even when I don’t want to use them.
I’m grateful for the click of the keyboard and the low hum of the heater and the fact that, despite it all, I haven’t stopped showing up for myself, even in the smallest of ways.

That’s where I’m living right now. In the small. In the barely-there gratitude. In the tiny flickers of light that remind me I’m not done yet.

And maybe that’s the whole point.

xoxo
-S

P.S. – Dare I ask – should I create a shadow work series/workbook? What do you think?