You Don't Have to Explain Yourself to Anyone: What to Do When People Don't Support Your Healing JourneyBy Courtney | Vitality Holistic Health and FitnessThere is a specific kind of loneliness that

By Courtney Somma| Vitality Holistic Health and Wellness/ Vitality Holistic Fitness

There is a specific kind of loneliness that comes with healing.

It is not the loneliness of being without people.

It is the loneliness of sitting in a room full of people who love you and still feeling completely unseen. When you're watching everyone around you eat and drink freely while you are quietly doing the mental calculus about what is going to send you into a three-day migraine. Of saying no again, explaining again, and defending yourself again to people who mean well but simply do not understand.

If you are healing from chronic migraines, chronic pain, or persistent fatigue, you know exactly what I am talking about.

In case no one has said this to you yet, I want to be the first:

You are not being dramatic, you are not being obsessed, and you are absolutely not ruining your quality of life by choosing your health.

Let us get into it.

Why the People Who Love You Sometimes Push Back the Hardest

It is a strange irony of healing: the people who care about us the most are often the ones who question our choices the most. When you change, you disrupt the dynamic. When you consistently say no to foods that everyone else is enjoying, when you start asking different questions and making different decisions, you hold up a mirror... whether you mean to or not. For some people, that mirror surfaces their own unexamined relationship with food, health, or self-care. Their pushback is rarely about you. It is almost always about them.

The comments sound like: You're being so restrictive. Just live a little. Are you sure this is actually healthy? And my favorite... Everything in moderation. While these statements may come from love, they land like obstacles on an already hard road.

Moderation Is Not the Answer When Your Body Is Healing

Let me say something that might be a little controversial: moderation is one of the most well-intentioned but misapplied pieces of advice in the health space.

For someone whose body is inflamed, whose gut is dysregulated, whose nervous system is overloaded- a moderate amount of a trigger is still a trigger.

Dr. Brooke Goldner, who reversed her own lupus through nutritional intervention, speaks to this directly: there is no safe amount of inflammatory input when the body is in a disease state and needs to recover. The rules of healing are different than the rules of maintenance.

That does not mean this is forever.

But in the healing season when you are rebuilding your body from the inside out, moderate exposure to the things driving your symptoms is not balance.

It is just slower suffering.

Sick People Do Not Get to Set the Standard for Healthy

Chronic inflammation is the norm.

Fatigue is the norm.

Pain, brain fog, and gut issues are all so common that we have started calling them inevitable. Aging, stress, and a normal part of life.

So when you step out of that and say "I don't think this has to be my story," the people who have accepted their suffering as permanent are going to be uncomfortable. Your dedication to your healing makes a statement they are not ready to hear.

The family member who is on four medications and still suffering does not get to tell you your approach is extreme. The doctor who has not been trained in root cause healing does not get to dismiss what is working in your body. The coworker who runs on coffee and ibuprofen does not get to call your celery juice weird.

Do Not Take Health Advice From Someone You Would Not Trade Bodies With

Here is one of the most important mindset shifts I share with the women I work with: do not take health advice from someone you would not trade bodies with.

I love my people... My family and friends are amazing.. But if someone in my circle is struggling with their own health, if they are on medications they do not want to be on, if they are not well in their own body then their opinion about my choices does not get to override my own research and lived experience.

That is not unkind. That is discernment.

The people questioning your dinner plate are not going to show up at 2am when the pain hits. They are not going to carry your migraine for you. You are and so you get to decide.

What to Do When You Feel Deprived

I want to acknowledge something real: sometimes, especially early in this journey, you will feel deprived. You will miss things and you will grieve things and that is okay.

But that feeling of deprivation is almost always a mindset signal, not a nutrition signal.

It comes from focusing on what you cannot have rather than what you are building. When you move from restriction-based thinking to abundance-based identity the whole experience of healing changes.

You are not giving anything up. You are choosing something better.

You are choosing mornings without pain.

You are choosing energy.

You are choosing to be present for your life in a way that you have not been able to be.

That is not deprivation. That is the most generous thing you have ever done for yourself.

Your Healing Belongs to You

At the end of the day, no one is coming to save you from chronic pain. No one else is going to do this work and no one else gets to decide whether it is worth it.

Your healing belongs to you.

Your choices belong to you.

The life you are building on the other side of this belongs to you too.

Hold your ground, keep going, and know that there are women out here who see you, who have walked this road, and who know exactly how brave you are for choosing it.

If you are ready for support on your healing journey, I invite you to learn more about working with me at vitalityholistichw.com/book.

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