What I’ve Unlearned After 24 Years in the Wellness Industry
Published: 20th April 2026 | I Am Jen Wilson, The Healing Rebel Podcast, Episode 245
I’ve been a participant in the wellness and wellbeing industry since 2002 and working in it professionally since 2009. That’s 24 years of being in this world, watching it evolve, watching the science shift, and watching myself shift along with it.
I’m 47. The maths only just caught up with me recently. And I figured it was time for an honest stocktake of the things I used to believe, used to teach, used to post about with full conviction, and have since had to let go of.
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What this episode is about
If you’ve been on your own wellness path for a while, you’ll probably recognise yourself in some of these. The point isn’t that I got it wrong and feel bad about it. The point is that being willing to update your beliefs as you learn more is part of being a serious practitioner and a serious human.
I’m Jen Wilson, The Healing Rebel. Here’s what I no longer believe.
Science isn’t the pinnacle of all knowledge
I used to hold science up as the gold standard. The top tier. The university qualification trumping the college qualification. The peer-reviewed paper as the final word.
Science is brilliant. It’s useful. It’s helped us understand huge amounts about the human body. But science needs things to be repeatable to be conclusive, and human biology doesn’t always cooperate with that requirement.
We’re complex, individual, ecosystemic beings. What works for one person doesn’t work for another. What’s true at 30 isn’t necessarily true at 47. Science gives us frameworks, but it doesn’t give us the final word on you, in your body, today.
I learned more at college than I ever did at university. That’s not a popular thing to say, but it’s the truth.
I’m not indestructible
There was a long phase of my career where I genuinely believed that if I just put in more effort and pushed harder, everything would be better. My body was telling me to stop, to slow down, to rest. I was overriding it.
The volume of exercise I was doing in a week became ridiculous. With hindsight, I can see that while health and fitness culture is socially acceptable and even celebrated, it can also become a place to hide a disordered relationship with control and food.
I have a history of disordered eating. That control got translated into how I measured food, how I weighed myself, how distressed I’d become if I missed a workout. I was scheduling my life around the gym instead of the other way around. I thought a missed session would unravel everything.
I’m not indestructible. Neither are you. And bodies have a way of insisting on that lesson if we don’t learn it the easy way.
“Go hard or go home” was never healthy
This was the culture when I first started working in the industry. Memes were brand new. Instagram hadn’t launched yet. But the messaging was already everywhere.
“Abs are built in the kitchen.” “Sweat is your fat melting.” “Go hard or go home.” “We’ve all got the same 24 hours.”
When I scroll back through my old social media accounts, I can see myself posting all of it. What’s interesting is that I was much more compassionate with my clients than I was with myself. I’d tell a client struggling in spin class to take it light, listen to her body, treat it as recovery. I’d never have given myself the same permission.
That culture wasn’t helpful. It hurt people. And we’re still recovering from it.
Rest isn’t lazy
This one took years to unlearn properly. I think it ties directly back to being a firstborn daughter, that sense of responsibility, that fear of not being productive, that guilt that sets in when you have space in your day.
A friend once shared something with me along the lines of “you have to have rested enough to have the energy to do the task you actually want to do.” Another came from a speaker who said “to give someone 100%, you first have to give yourself 200%.” That second one was a man saying it, which I noticed. Men, in my experience, don’t carry the same guilt around taking rest as women do.
Where does that come from? Why are we, as women, raised to believe we’re responsible for keeping everything going? That’s a much bigger question than I can answer in one podcast. But I’ve stopped believing rest is something I need to earn.
Veganism isn’t universally healthy
I was vegetarian or vegan for around 20 to 25 years. I believed it was the healthiest way to eat. I defended it. I championed it.
The origin story is less inspiring than you might expect. I had a very bland palate. My ex used to put new foods on my plate to try and get me to eat them, which made me anxious and frustrated. So I declared myself vegetarian just to get him to stop putting meat on my plate. That declaration then ran on autopilot for two decades.
When I eventually reintroduced fish, and later meat, my body became healthier. Not dramatically. Steadily. There are vitamins, minerals, and nutrients we get from animal foods that are harder to get from plant sources, and my body told me that clearly once I started listening.
I’m not telling any vegan they can’t be vegan. That’s none of my business. But if you have a chronic illness and your symptoms haven’t improved on a plant-based diet over years, it’s worth getting curious rather than defensive.
Elimination diets aren’t a long-term solution
An elimination diet can be useful for a short period to identify potential irritants and allergens. As you reintroduce foods one at a time, you can work out what your body responds to.
The problem is that the wellness world has turned elimination into a lifestyle. People cut out whole food groups indefinitely, lose the diversity of nutrients, and lose the diversity of gut microbes that come with a varied diet.
The gluten conversation is a good example. There are people who are coeliac, for whom gluten is genuinely life-threatening. There’s a much larger cohort who struggle with gluten, but the issue may not be the gluten itself. It may be the glyphosate sprayed on grain during the drying process. It may be the emulsifiers and additives in modern, fast-produced bread that didn’t exist 40 years ago.
Bread used to go mouldy within a couple of days. Now it lasts weeks without changing texture. That’s not because the bread got better. It’s because we put things in it that shouldn’t be in our bodies. If you struggle with gluten, try a traditionally made sourdough from a local mill, ideally organic, before you cut out the whole food group forever.
You can’t push through fatigue
This is one of the most damaging beliefs I held. The idea that if I just kept going, kept moving, kept training, I’d push through and feel better.
Sometimes movement does help. If you’ve been at a desk all day and you’re lethargic, a walk or a gentle session can absolutely lift you. Your body will tell you very quickly whether it’s helping. You’ll sleep well that night and wake up feeling better.
But if you’re flat, exhausted, properly fried, and you push through anyway, you don’t get the benefit of the movement. You just get an adrenaline and cortisol high that leaves you wired and unable to sleep. That’s not recovery. That’s depletion with a buzz on top.
I’ve got this wrong many, many times. I’m still learning to listen.
Suppressing emotions isn’t strength
I was the queen of emotional suppression. “I’m fine.” Smile on my face. Push through. Pushing down the tears, the anger, the grief. I genuinely believed I wasn’t an emotional person.
It wasn’t until I came off the combined contraceptive pill that I realised the pill had been flatlining me, emotionally and energetically, for years. Coming off it was eye-opening. It turns out I’m an incredibly emotional person. I cry at happy stories, sad stories, films, songs, anything. I’ll probably cry more with you in a conversation than anyone else will.
That’s not because I feel sorry for you. It’s because I’ve finally learned to let emotion pass through rather than hold it in. It took therapy. It took herbs (rosebay willowherb, rose, and hawthorn were huge for me after my uncle died last summer). It took practice.
The adults who taught me to suppress my emotions weren’t being cruel. They were doing the best they could with what they had. A teacher with 30 kids in a classroom can’t accommodate one highly sensitive child. Parents and grandparents pass on what they were taught. There’s no blame here. Just an unlearning.
Chronic illness isn’t the end of the road
I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in 2017. I thought it was a death sentence. I thought my life would never be the same again.
That second part was right. My life isn’t the same. But the life I’m living now is closer to the life I actually wanted to live, before I got sick. I was too scared to live it then because I was carrying firstborn daughter responsibilities, expectations I was putting on myself, the achiever-achiever-achiever pattern that never let me stop and acknowledge anything.
Chronic illness made me stop. It made me ask different questions. It made me build a life and a business that actually fit me. That’s not a positive spin on a bad diagnosis. That’s the genuine truth of what happened.
If you’re in the early days of a diagnosis right now and that idea feels offensive, I get it. I’d have felt the same in 2017. Take what you need from this and leave the rest.
Fasting isn’t right for women in perimenopause
I used to be a big advocate for fasting. With hindsight, I can see that a lot of it was about control again. Look what I can do. Look how disciplined I am.
I tried a 72-hour fast to “reset my immune system.” It didn’t reset my immune system. What I’ve learned since is that if you’re already in a stressed state, with cortisol levels high or really low, fasting beyond 12 to 13 hours has the opposite effect to what you’re hoping for.
For women in perimenopause, our hormones are fluctuating constantly. Cortisol is part of that picture. Prolonged fasting can knock you further off balance, not bring you back to it. 12 hours minimum, 16 maximum overnight is plenty for most of us. Eating breakfast is important. Eating earlier in the day is often better than skipping it.
The fasting world is dominated by research done on men. The female data is much newer and much more nuanced. Be cautious.
Frequently asked questions
Is science always right about health and nutrition?
Science is useful but not infallible, especially when it comes to human biology. Studies need to be repeatable to be conclusive, but human bodies are individual and ecosystemic. Science gives us frameworks, not final answers about what’s right for your unique body.
Why isn’t “go hard or go home” healthy?
Pushing your body beyond its limits as a daily practice creates chronic stress, increases cortisol, depletes recovery capacity, and can mask or reinforce disordered patterns with food, exercise, and control. Rest and recovery are when adaptation actually happens.
Is veganism healthy long-term?
It can work well for some people, but it’s harder to be truly healthy on a vegan diet than the wellness world often acknowledges. There are vitamins and minerals that are more bioavailable in animal foods. If you have a chronic health condition and a plant-based diet hasn’t improved things, it’s worth getting curious about reintroducing some animal foods.
Should women in perimenopause do intermittent fasting?
Most fasting research was done on men. For women in perimenopause, with fluctuating hormones and cortisol levels, fasting beyond 12 to 13 hours overnight can create more stress in the body rather than less. 12 to 16 hours is generally a safer range.
Why is rest so often confused with laziness?
Cultural conditioning, particularly around productivity, gendered expectations, and firstborn daughter dynamics, teaches many women that rest must be earned. In reality, rest is a system requirement, not a reward.
Can chronic illness actually lead to a better life?
For some people, yes. Chronic illness can force a recalibration of priorities, work, relationships, and self-care that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. This isn’t a guarantee, and it doesn’t mean the illness was “for the best.” It means that what comes after can sometimes be more aligned than what came before.
Want to start with something simple?
Download my free Lymphatic Drainage Self-Care Routine. It’s a gentle, guided way to start supporting your body’s natural detoxification and getting to know your own physiology.
[Download the free routine here]
Come in for a treatment
If you’re in or around Glasgow and you’d like to experience this kind of work in person, I offer treatments from my private home studio in Springburn, North Glasgow.
[The Reset (90 minutes, £85)] | [The Recalibration (3 hours, £197)] | [Check my other treatments here]
Related episodes
- [Link to “Eldest Daughter Syndrome and Why Firstborn Daughters Burn Out”]
- [Link to “Can You Really Self-Soothe? Or Do You Need Connection?”]
- [Link to “Can Fascia Release Really Heal Your Trauma?”] (once published)
About Jen:
Jen Wilson is The Healing Rebel, a holistic wellness practitioner with over 15 years in practice, supporting capable, responsible women over 40 who give to everyone and struggle to receive. Working from her private home studio in Springburn, North Glasgow, Jen offers The Reset, The Recalibration, Manual Lymphatic Drainage, Therapeutic Fascia Massage, Menopause Massage, Reiki, Reiki Drumming, and Sound Healing, plus online classes and an on-demand subscription library.
Find out more at iamjenwilson.com
Full episode transcript
(0:00) It’s the fact that I’ve been in the well-being wellness industry since 2002 as (0:05) participants. I’ve been working in the industry since 2009 and that math (0:13) didn’t make sense to me because I was like that means I’ve been working in the (0:16) industry for 17 years. I’ve been part of the industry for 24 years but that (0:23) doesn’t make sense because how can I be old enough for that and then I realised (0:26) I’m 47 so of course I’m old enough for that.
Anyway, there’s lots of things that I (0:32) have had to unlearn on this journey and this industry because science changes, (0:41) science evolves and putting things into practise, you learn even more because if (0:50) you’ve listened to any of my previous podcasts before where I’ve gone on a (0:54) rant, science only teaches so far. Science is science that has to be (1:08) repeatable but human biology is not as repeatable as science needs it to be for (1:16) things to be conclusive. So that was one thing actually that I have unlearned (1:21) with that while science is there as the pinnacle of all education as the top tier (1:30) university, as the top tier again I’ve ranted about this in the past before, no (1:35) it’s not there, I said it, that is my belief, it is not the pinnacle of (1:44) education.
Very good, it can be very challenging, it can be very difficult, (1:49) doesn’t mean it’s the best. I learned more at college than I ever did at (1:53) university, there you go. If you’re new to the podcast, thank you so much for (2:01) joining me, brace yourself for tangents and ramblings and rants.
I am very (2:08) aware that I have got a meeting at 2.30 which is going to give me 27 minutes to (2:14) get through today’s podcast so I’m going to try and keep this succinct and to the (2:19) point, that’s what succinct means. Welcome to my world, if you’re a (2:24) returning guest thank you so much for coming back, I do appreciate it, remember (2:28) to like, subscribe, share etc. Right, what else have I had to stop believing in? (2:34) What have I unlearned since I’ve joined this industry? I have a list to keep me (2:39) on track once again, so everything was the first thing that I wrote, already (2:45) talked about, my belief in university being high and science being the pinnacle (2:51) of all information, can be useful, as useful, I still get caught up in the (2:55) wow, look what science has discovered, wow, look what we have discovered as human (3:02) beings.
I’ve also realised I am not indestructible, I went through quite a (3:08) large phase of my fitness and health journey thinking that I could just, if I (3:15) put in more effort and pushed harder, everything would be better even though my (3:22) body was telling me to stop, to slow down, to give it a break. The volume of (3:27) exercise that I was doing in a week became ridiculous, I discovered in (3:32) hindsight I’ve learned that while health and fitness is deemed as socially (3:39) acceptable, it can also be problematic. There’s history of disordered eating in (3:46) my history and that then got translated into how well, where else can I bring control (3:53) and control in how I measured and weighed foot, control in going to the gym and (4:01) being really distressed if I didn’t get to get that workout in thinking that (4:05) everything was going to fall apart, everything was going to unravel with a (4:08) missed one workout, scheduling my life around the workouts instead of the other (4:13) way round.
This attitude of go hard or go home, that was when I first was (4:20) working in the industry that was very much, the memes were just new, social (4:24) media was just new, Instagram hadn’t even been dated yet, but when I look back on (4:32) one of my old accounts, when I scrolled right down to the bottom of the early (4:36) posts, I had so many of these pictures we now call memes and it was, you know, abs (4:43) are built in the kitchen, fat is, sweat is your fat melting out your body, go (4:49) hard or go home, you’ve got no excuses, get up and go, we’ve all got the same (4:55) 24 hours and day blah blah, when I look back I go, wow, that mindset was of what it (5:03) was of the culture and it wasn’t helpful, but I have grown, I have moved (5:08) through that, I no longer believe that and actually although I was posting those (5:14) things, these are the things that I was telling myself that wasn’t the same as (5:18) what I was telling my clients, I was much more compassionate with my clients, (5:22) I was very much listen to your own body, if you’ve got up this morning and come (5:27) to this class and you’re struggling, listen to that, make sure you take on (5:31) plenty of fluids, go light with it, I was teaching spin classes, go light, don’t go (5:36) hard and heavy with the class, just let your legs roll out, take it as a recovery (5:39) session, I used to say these things to my clients but didn’t allow myself that (5:44) same set of rules, something else that I believe that I had had to work quite (5:55) hard on unlearning is that rest is not lazy, again I feel like this (6:03) comes from social constructs of if you’ve got space in your day you’ve got to (6:08) fill it doing something, you’ve got to be productive, got to show up, got to (6:14) give and this might be the last podcast I was talking about being a first-born (6:19) daughter and that sense of responsibility that we hold, I think that (6:25) sense of responsibility that we hold then can show up as a fear of not doing (6:29) something, fear of not being productive, fill in your day because guilt sets in (6:37) if you haven’t, what have you been up to date or nothing, very good, other people (6:42) get their nose put out of joint if you’ve not done anything and they’ve been (6:46) really busy, if my partner loves to go for an app and I get annoyed with that (6:53) there’s nothing to stop me from going for an app, apart from the fact I don’t like (6:57) going lying down in the middle of the day because that associates has been ill (7:01) to me and when I’m well I don’t want to confuse my mind, confuse my body, (7:08) confuse my nervous system or things aren’t good and maybe that’s something (7:13) else I need to look at and need to address as I continue forward, this (7:18) podcast could be repeated again in another 18 months of what else have I (7:21) unlearned but yeah, rest is not laziness, I remember one of my friends (7:28) sharing a thing saying you have to have rested enough to have the energy to do (7:33) the task that you want to do, a talk that I was at, the guy there talked (7:38) about to give somebody a hundred percent, you first have to give yourself two (7:41) hundred percent because you can’t empty the tank given to other people all the (7:44) time and I thought that was really, really, really, really, really useful (7:50) information but also acknowledged that the two hundred percent to give the (7:55) hundred percent was coming from a man and in my experience men definitely don’t (8:01) have that same guilt around taking their time for themselves, taking that (8:06) rest as women do and where does this come from, what is that social construct, (8:12) why are we being given or why do we believe that we are have been given all (8:17) the responsibility to keep everything going, what is it we’re trying to prove, I (8:21) had a fit, I ran on a couple of podcasts to go about feminism and I wonder how much (8:27) of it comes from that, this needing to prove that we are better than men but (8:31) we’re not because we have different skills and we’re all crazy, I’m trying to like (8:37) burn ourselves out to try and prove that we are the better species but yeah we are (8:43) crazy with our beliefs, another belief that I let go of, I unlearned was (8:50) veganism is healthy, I was vegetarian slash vegan for around twenty to twenty (8:58) five years and I thought that that was the healthier way to be, I (9:06) originally went into, I don’t know if I’ve shared this story before, I originally (9:10) declared I was vegetarian because my ex used to try and encourage me to try other (9:20) foods, I had a very very bland palate but in him doing that I would get (9:26) really stressed and really anxious because he was putting food on my plate, (9:29) fucking put food on my plate please, but there was a lot of pressure and he was (9:35) getting frustrated with me which was making me angry and frustrated with the (9:38) whole situation and so it would cycle on so I just declared I was vegetarian so (9:43) he would at least stop putting meat onto my plate to try and get me to eat it, (9:47) that then followed through for another twenty to twenty five years and that (9:52) dabbled with veganism insofar as not having any animal products to consume, (9:59) still wear leather, still I still do wear leather and I stand by the leather (10:03) trade, not mass produced but that’s a whole other story, whole other podcast (10:08) everything, I believe everything should be used and used in synthetic fibres, bad (10:12) for the environment, bad for our health, I stand by that. Back to (10:19) consuming a plant-based diet, to calderia, yeah dairy was pretty much the main thing (10:26) that I removed from a diet when I went vegan, I believed it was healthy, thought (10:32) that all the non-dairy milk alternatives for healthy are bag of crones, right, when (10:40) I was in this space, it loads of fibre, loads of fibre, but for whatever reason my (10:49) body wasn’t happy with that and I’ve spoken about this before that when I (10:53) listened to game hunter-gatherers get to the 21st century, they talked about the (11:00) evolution of diet and when you look at where your genetics have come from, where (11:05) your DNA has come from and you try a diet that’s more similar to your own (11:10) ancestors, I think when I was first listening to that book, the paleo diet (11:16) was a big thing and people were all in with the big plates of meat and taking (11:22) all the veg and stuff like that out their diet and for some people that works (11:25) really well, for some people it doesn’t seem veganism to be fair, there are a small (11:30) cohort of people that veganism can work really well for, it is very difficult (11:34) to be healthy and be vegan because from animal-based foods there are so many (11:40) vitamins and minerals that are not as available in plant form, people will (11:47) argue against that but all I can see is for myself, when I introduced fish into my (11:53) diet, when I introduced meat into my diet, my body became healthier, so I’m not going (12:00) to tell a vegan that they can’t be vegan, that’s none of my business, that’s (12:04) completely up to you but if you have hellfishes and you are following a (12:07) vegan diet and they have got worse, you might need to reconsider and think about (12:14) that and is there a way you can make yourself healthier but that’s between you (12:20) and your own models and needs and desires and health outcomes but for me (12:26) veganism was not the way forward, elimination diets not healthy, an (12:33) elimination diet can be useful in a short period of time to take out (12:41) potential irritants and allergens and as you add things back in you can then (12:47) work out what it is that’s causing the disruption, from what I’ve (12:54) understood from listening to lots of people talking about this, particularly (13:00) the big gluten debate, can people eat gluten, can people not eat gluten, there’s a cohort of (13:06) people who believe that it’s not the gluten that’s the problem as the (13:09) chemicals are sprayed on the gluten before people consume them, there are (13:15) people who are celiac which is life-threatening so those people are (13:20) definitely allergic to gluten but most other people we have been (13:24) eating grains for tens of thousands of years, your body like the veganism (13:33) thing, your body knows what’s happening and what’s not happening and if you (13:37) remove that there are lots of vitamins and minerals and nutrients that we can (13:41) get from grain if your body can eat it, now we never in the olden days, pre the (13:49) last 40 years, we never used to eat bread that was made as quickly as it’s (13:55) used to eat sourdough, we used to eat bread that was fermented over time even (14:00) one of my friends Janice who’s been on the podcast before being nourished by (14:05) nature, Janice used to work for one of the big bread manufacturers and they (14:12) learned how to make bread faster by adding ingredients to the mixture so that (14:20) they were producing more so that they could sell more, has not produced a (14:24) better quality of bread, I remember when I was young, bread used to go mouldy and (14:30) it would go hard within a couple of days, bread now lasts weeks without going (14:35) mouldy and it doesn’t lose its squishiness so there’s shit in that (14:39) bread that should not be in your body, those emulsifiers that get added to the (14:45) foods that give it that squishiness that make it not go mouldy cause so much (14:52) disruption in your gut they kill off your own microbes because it’s kind of (14:56) like an antibiotic kind of texture giving substance that’s made in a lab, it is not (15:03) from nature so maybe if you are sensitive to gluten can you look at (15:10) breads that are more traditionally made, can you make your own breads and have it (15:14) traditionally buy from a small mill, a small local mill if you can find them to (15:21) get a better quality grain, ideally organic so that it’s not had glyphosate (15:25) sprayed on it, that’s one of the things that they do to beat as they add (15:28) glyphosate in the drying process so that it doesn’t go mouldy, it’s not (15:35) about killing off any bugs or anything like that, it is purely to dry out the (15:42) grain and for a lot of people it’s actually a sensitivity and an allergy to (15:47) the chemicals that have been put onto it so something to consider but the (15:52) elimination diet, removing whole food groups from your diet is not ideal, you (15:57) want to have a broad spectrum of different sources of food ideally grown (16:02) as locally as possible so that you’re getting a broad spectrum of microbes to (16:09) help your ecosystem flourish. Kind of already touched on this next one about (16:18) getting over things if you just keep pushing through, tiredness, fatigue, can’t (16:26) keep pushing through, can’t just and just go out for a run or go to the gym and (16:30) lift weights and then expect to feel great when you’ve been in feeling (16:36) absolutely flat lined like somebody had pulled your plug out, if you’re feeling a (16:40) little bit down in the past, if you’re feeling lethargic from sitting at a (16:45) computer all day then yes your body probably will do really well from moving, (16:49) you will know very quickly whether or not you’re doing the right thing, if you (16:53) start to exercise and very quickly you’re feeling worse then you stop and (16:58) you rest, if you start doing your exercise and you’re like oh actually this (17:01) is helping me feel a bit better and then you get a good night’s (17:04) sleep at the end of the day then it has done you good.
If you’ve done the (17:09) exercise and you start to feel the buzz but then you can’t sleep that (17:13) night then you’ve been working with your adrenalin and cortisol too much (17:16) and you’ve just got the adrenalin high rather than getting the benefit of the (17:21) exercise. It can’t be trial and error and I have got it wrong many times where I’ve (17:27) just pushed through and then be like oh can’t do this, absolutely exhausted. (17:32) Emotional stuff you definitely need to work through it, how and when you do (17:38) that is going to be dependent on your circumstances, suppressing your emotions (17:43) is definitely not a good idea.
I was the queen of emotions, suppression even. (17:49) I was very able to, I’m fine, and have the smile on my face and push through and (17:56) inside I was dying, inside pushing down the tears, pushing down the anger, all of (18:02) these things. I actually had the belief that I was not an emotional person and (18:07) this was something else I had to unlearn because one of us on the (18:12) contraceptive pill and it wasn’t until I came off that contraceptive pill that I (18:16) started feeling the ebb and flow of the month first of all but also the ebb and (18:19) flow of emotions.
Being on the contraceptive pill I was on the (18:23) combined pill, I was flatlined all month long, energetically, emotionally and I (18:30) didn’t know that until I came off it. Coming off it was eye-opening and it (18:38) turns out I am actually a very emotional person. I did podcasts previously about (18:42) being a highly sensitive person but I had learned to suppress those emotions (18:48) because adults told me this is not okay, it’s not okay for you to feel this way, (18:52) it’s not okay for you to be this way in front of other people so you have to (18:56) tone it down, calm it down and those adults thought that they were doing the (19:01) right thing, there was no blame pointed at anybody.
You know if a teacher’s got (19:08) a classroom of kids, you can’t just accommodate the one person who’s trying (19:12) to accommodate 30, they’re only doing the best they can, parents, grandparents and (19:19) his uncle, whoever is in your life, whoever is there to support you are (19:24) doing the best job that they can but it turns out I am actually a very (19:29) emotional person and I will cry at anything nowadays. People tell me a happy (19:33) story and I’m like, people are telling me a sad story, that’s me crying. I’ll probably (19:39) cry more with you than anybody else and it’s not that I feel sorry for you, not (19:44) that I’m upset, it’s just I’m letting the emotion pass through and I’m getting (19:48) better at that.
It has taken practise, it has taken therapy, it has taken using (19:54) herbs as emotional support for some brilliant herbs that you can use to (19:58) help tone your nervous system, to help support the healing and even the belief (20:04) of the herbs that are there. When my uncle passed away last summer, I used (20:10) herbs like rose be willow herb and rose and hawthorn because they are very (20:15) nourishing and healing for the heart emotionally and physically so it really (20:22) helped and it could be just that mental association of taking that time or it (20:27) could be the compounds within the herbs. I don’t know which it was but I’m happy to (20:32) be open to all of it because again it worked for me.
I’ve already mentioned (20:39) about uni being the gold standard of education, no. Chronic illness is the (20:47) end of the road, I had to unlearn this. Being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in (20:53) 2017, I thought it was a death sentence, I thought my life is never going to be the (21:00) same again and that thought was correct.
I thought it was going to be only in a (21:05) negative way. Yes there are some shit times literally and figuratively but the (21:13) life that I now am living is the life that I actually wanted to live long (21:19) before I got sick but I was too scared to live the life that I wanted to live (21:24) because I had first born daughter responsibilities and expectations that I (21:30) was putting on myself. I was trying to live to this standard, I was over (21:36) achieving, some people would call it type A personality but being in this (21:40) achiever, achiever, achiever mode, never acknowledging what you’ve done, never taking a (21:46) moment to pat yourself on the back, never even taking a step back and going look (21:52) at it.
I’m in an accountability group for business and on a monthly basis we put (21:58) in our wins and our challenges and our goals for the following month and it’s (22:03) good to look back over those wins even for just the weeks that have gone past (22:09) so that you remember but also to look back over the months and it will (22:15) gradually build up to being years of information go wow look at all the things (22:19) that I have done because I don’t think we take time to stop and just think (22:26) gradually ourselves. The last thing that I’m going to talk about today is (22:31) fasting. Fasting is something that has got a lot of very confused data over (22:41) most of it is based on men there is more research coming out for women now (22:46) I used to be a big advocate of fasting again I think it was all just about the (22:50) control it was about the control and look at me look what I can do I’ve tried (22:55) fasting for healing my body because they talk about if you go into a 72 hour (23:00) fast that will reset your immune system I did a 72 hour fast it did not reset my (23:07) immune system because what I have now learned is if you’re already in a fully (23:12) stressed state if your cortisol levels are high or really low if you are in a (23:19) stressed state fasting for more than the 12 to 13 hours for your gut to balance (23:27) out which is the minimum that we should be doing overnight to give your gut a (23:33) rest to let it digest to let your body heal anything more than that if you’re (23:38) in a hyper stress state it’s gonna have a counter effect you need to be in a more (23:45) relaxed state so women who are in the perimenopausal years fasting for us no (23:50) ideal not doing more than that maybe 6 12 minimum 16 maximum so that 8 16 can (23:59) work really well and having breakfast super important for most people and if (24:10) you don’t eat breakfast and you’re somebody who’s always lethargic and (24:13) really struggling with weight I would maybe switch and try having breakfast (24:16) for a while and having your dinner earlier in the day so that you’re (24:19) switching that that window of not eating time around stop my alarm just to see (24:28) what works better for you because so many people in the fasting world are (24:32) like just skip breakfast it’s the easiest meal of the day skip and then (24:35) you can eat but when you’re waking up in the morning and the sun is starting (24:39) to rise your body is becoming way more sensitive to its environment it’s easier (24:45) to digest the food as the Sun is coming up when the Sun’s going down your body (24:49) is down regulating getting ready for sleep getting ready for not digesting (24:55) food I would encourage people to give that a try but do not do any menopausal (25:01) women the advice as it stands just now because our hormones are fluctuating so (25:07) much and all over the place our cortisol is included in that hormone (25:11) fluctuation that prolonged fasting is really really potentially harmful worst (25:19) case day like it’s just gonna knock you off-kilter and if you’re controlling and (25:25) you’re not losing weight then it’s probably why and so yeah that is where (25:32) I want to stop today because I’ve got a meeting to go to and also I’ve talked (25:37) enough well I stopped believing and 2026 since being in this industry since (25:44) 2002 I just that maths just as well and I do have a free lymphatic drainage (25:52) download that you can get the details are in the show notes so please do (25:56) download that get you kick-started get your body going and moving so much (26:01) better it’s going right into your body flushing the toilet essentially please (26:07) download that and then let me know how you go on if you’ve got any thoughts any (26:10) comments any questions anything that you have unlearned pop it in I’d love to know (26:16) if there’s anything particular that you’re like oh I’ve just had to let this (26:20) go and here’s why follow like share subscribe blah blah blah I will see you (26:27) on the next episode
